Category: Writer Local to Kawartha Lakes

Alan Roy Capon

On By Sara WalkerIn Local History, Non-Fiction, Writer Local to Kawartha LakesLeave a comment

Known for being the longtime editor of the Lindsay Post, Alan R. Capon was also an author.

Photo: KLMA

Born in 1932 in England, Alan Roy Capon immigrated to Canada in 1937 as a married father of three. He was hired as a copywriter for the Robert J. Simpson company. In 1963, he established the Minden Times newspaper and was editor for the next two years, when he handed over the reins so he could helm the Lindsay Daily Post, where he remained editor until 1970. For the next twenty years, he was editor of the Kingston Whig-Standard and was also editor of the Picton Gazette. Capon was an active member of community organizations, a photographer, and an historian.

His books about Kawartha Lakes include His Faults Lie Gently: the incredible Sam Hughes (1969) and Historic Lindsay (1973).

The Kawartha Lakes Museum and Archives (KLMA) produced a digital exhibition about the Lindsay Post and included the biography of Alan R. Capon: https://www.klmuseumarchives.ca/lindsay-post

Books:

His Faults Lie Gently: the incredible Sam Hughes (1969)

Stories of Prince Edward County (1973)

Historic Lindsay (1973)

Prince Edward Treasury (1976)

Mascots of the Hastings and Prince Edward Regiment (1977)

Desperate Venture: Central Ontario Railway (1979)

A Goodly Heritage (1980)

Everybody Called Him Harvey (1982)

Fifty Years A County Veterinarian (1983)

Deseronto: Then and Now (1989)

Further Reading:

https://www.countyweeklynews.ca/opinion/columnists/my-last-name-is-capon-and-i-dont-sell-chickens

Amy Terrill

On By Sara WalkerIn Fiction, Historical, Writer Local to Kawartha LakesLeave a comment

Amy Terrill, a King Charles III Coronation Medal recipient for her contributions to Canada and her community, has been involved in political discourse throughout her career. A Political Science graduate from Queen’s University, Amy has spent time as a journalist, government relations specialist, and not-for-profit leader. Writing has been a constant pursuit.

No Secrets Among Sisters was inspired by a family history written by her Great-Aunt Frankie and her experiences working in a WWI Toronto munitions factory. This is Amy’s first work of fiction.

An avid reader, writer and traveller, Amy lives with her husband on a farm in Kawartha Lakes, Ontario.

Once at the top of her field, investigative reporter Amelia Collins has been struggling with the loss of her father. When her story exposing political corruption at the highest level is shelved, her temper erupts, putting her career in jeopardy at a moment when a rival is poised to take her place. As she deals with the fallout, she’s given a chance to run for federal politics. With just one weekend to decide on the course of her future, Amelia looks to her mother for guidance only to discover, before his death, her father left her a mystery to solve. A century earlier, her great-aunt walked away from a similar political opportunity despite encouragement from one of Canada’s best-known suffragists.

As Amelia digs through family archives to find out why Great-Aunt Frankie abandoned her political dream, she uncovers a web of violence, sudden disappearances and a mysterious fire that destroyed the Canadian parliament buildings.

No Secrets Among Sisters is a work of historical fiction set in Toronto in both World War I and current day; it highlights women’s continuing struggle for equality, representation and fair treatment in political spheres.

Works:

No Secrets Among Sisters (2025)

H. L. Dahmer

On By Sara WalkerIn Non-Fiction, Writer Local to Kawartha LakesLeave a comment

Heather Dahmer’s sense of humour and love of words has led her through many professional, volunteer, and personal experiences, including work with a non-profit charitable organization helping families dealing with workplace tragedy. Her unique and humorous perspective allows her to write stories about struggle and initiative, and they have forged her way through the things life drops at her door and through her attic walls.

Her article “Letting the Light Back In” won an award from Threads of Life in 2015, and explored love, loss, and beginning again as a widow in a whole new world after the loss of her husband. She is many things to many people: a mother, divorcee, window, step-grandmother, caregiver, and writer. She wrote a blog for years detailing her husband’s illness and last years, and If This House Could Talk is the first book in a new series. She lives in Dunsford, Ontario.

www.sawmillhouse.ca

Works:

If This House Could Talk (2021)

Jim Upton

On By Sara WalkerIn Fiction, Writer Local to Kawartha LakesLeave a comment

Jim Upton attended public school (Alexandra and Central Senior) and high school (LCVI) in Lindsay from 1958 to 1967. He currently lives in Montreal.

His novel, Maker, was published by Baraka Books in 2021. Sid Ryan, former president of the Ontario Federation of Labour, described Maker as “a fast-paced look inside the anatomy of a bitter strike in Montreal’s aerospace industry.”

Book cover for the novel, Maker, by Jim Upton. Cover is illustration of woman wearing a blue jumpsuit with her arms crossed over her chest.

Nicole Fortin is on the cusp of realizing a long-held dream when her life takes a sudden turn. Instead of participating in the Olympic Games, she finds herself struggling to master the challenging physical demands of her job in an aerospace plant and win the confidence of her male colleagues.

As her involvement in union activity deepens, she is drawn into the centre of a bitter labour battle that pits her workmates against their employer.

In the midst of this escalating confrontation, incidents from Nicole’s past threaten to destroy her credibility with her coworkers and her relationship with her daughter. Workplace and family ties become tangled and stretched to the breaking point.

Books:

Maker (2021)

R. Arthur Russell

On By Sara WalkerIn Non-Fiction, Writer Local to Kawartha LakesLeave a comment

Arthur Russell is a retired paramedic of thirty-five years service and currently lives in Lindsay, Ontario, Canada. An author of both fiction and non-fiction, his previous published works include an e-book entitled “Hold That Thought” regarding the Law of Attraction and, more recently, a non-fiction book entitled “This Taste of Flesh and Bones” about enlightenment and our spiritual nature. Now sixty-three, he wishes to share his knowledge regarding enlightenment to help alleviate human suffering. In his spare time, he enjoys travel, adventure, motorcycling, and meeting new people, all of which enrich his life in countless ways.

https://think2wice.me/author/think2wiceblog/

Works:

This Taste of Flesh and Bones: Enlightenment and Endless Possibilities (2020)

Hold That Thought: Manifesting the life of your dreams (2014)

Grace King

On By Sara WalkerIn Children's Literature, Memoir, Writer Local to Kawartha LakesLeave a comment

Grace King retired from the Ministry of Community Safety and Correctional Services in 2014. She has a wide range of skills and experience working within the private, public and not-for-profit sectors in volunteer management, program development and marketing. She volunteered for over 30 years for Tri-County Support Services, now Canopy Services.

In 2017, she completed a children’s book, proceeds from which she donated to the ALS Society, after her husband passed away from the disease (amyotrophic lateral sclerosis.) In 2022 she completed an autobiographical book in which she shared her challenges and successes along with tales about her relatives.

Works:

Journey through the Forest (2017)

Amazing Grace (2022)

https://www.thepeterboroughexaminer.com/news/author-takes-magical-trip-through-the-forest/article_1f68eecb-c2bc-5639-b7e8-1c42ef9c2931.html

Exhibition: subVERSE: the life and poetry of Edward A. Lacey

On By Sara WalkerIn Events, Non-Fiction, Poet, Writer Local to Kawartha LakesLeave a comment

Edward A. Lacey (1937-1995) wrote and published what is known as the first openly gay poetry collection in English-speaking Canada. The book, The Forms of Loss, was sponsored by Dennis Lee and Margaret Atwood.

Edward A. Lacey was born and raised in Lindsay, Ontario, the only child to parents with prominent community connections: his grandfather was Dr. Fabian Blanchard; his father’s business partner was I.E. Weldon. Many of his cousins became priests or nuns, and it was expected Edward would also join the clergy if he didn’t become a doctor or a lawyer.

Even as a child, Edward knew he was different. In his teens, he knew he wasn’t like his hockey-playing friends. He possessed a keen mind for linguistics that won him scholarships to the University of Toronto and the University of Texas.

As primed for success as he was, Edward wore a path of self-destruction around the globe. He operated on the principle that “homosexuality was intrinsically subversive, individualistic, anti-family, anti-regimentation.” Multiple times, he was nearly expelled from university. He frequently spent time in jail. He got himself banned from entering the United States. For most of his life he slummed through third-world countries, working as a professor or tutor, or living a life of leisure, while penning the occasional poem or translating one from another language. 

In 1995 Edward’s self-destruction fulfilled its ultimate conclusion, while his body of work attained barely a whisper in the landscape of Canadian literature despite its brilliance. When Fraser Sutherland published his biography of Edward Lacey, the Malahat Review said “many academic readers will no doubt be interested in what amounts to a very well-researched and entertaining biography of a heretofore neglected Canadian poet.” 

subVERSE: the life and work of Edward A. Lacey is an exhibition that spotlights the body of work that Lacey left behind and his complicated connection to his much-hated hometown.  

On exhibit at Kawartha Lakes Museum & Archives, located at 150 Victoria Avenue North. 705-324-3404, info@klmuseumarchives.ca. Admission is $5/adult, $3/child(6-18). Admission is free for children under 6 and for members of the Kawartha Lakes Museum & Archives. Visit https://www.klmuseumarchives.ca/ for more information.

Hayley Phoenix-Winterburn

On By Sara WalkerIn Poet, Writer Local to Kawartha LakesLeave a comment

Hayley Phoenix-Winterburn (she/they) lives in Norland, Ontario. After years of writing to herself for herself, Hayley has began the journey of writing for herself as well as for others. Sharing their journey of healing through poetry, Hayley writes about love & loss, trauma & healing, and what it is like growing up in a small town through it all.

Her first book, Chaos is a Friend of Mine, touches on all of these themes and more – available through Amazon.

www.elmaiawrites.com

Books:

Chaos is a Friend of Mine

Susan E. Wadds

On By Sara WalkerIn Fiction, Non-Fiction, Writer Local to Kawartha LakesLeave a comment

Winner of The Writers’ Union of Canada’s prose contest, Susan Wadds’ work has appeared, among others, in The Blood Pudding, Room, Quagmire, Waterwheel Review, Funicular, Last Stanza, and carte blanche magazines. The first two chapters of her debut novel, published by Regal House Publishing, “What the Living Do” won Lazuli Literary Group’s prose contest, published in Azure Magazine.


A graduate of the Humber School for Writers, Susan is a certified Amherst Writers and Artists (AWA) writing workshop facilitator.


As a settler married to an Ojibwe man with whom she has a son, Susan has been immersed in Indigenous culture and tradition for the past thirty years. She lives in Kawartha Lakes in the former Dalton township by a quiet river on Williams Treaty Territory in South-Central Ontario with an odd assortment of humans and cats.

website: writeyourwayin.ca

Works:

What the Living Do (forthcoming)


Johaness Trojan (1837-1915)

On By Sara WalkerIn Non-Fiction, WritersLeave a comment

In the year 1900, German writer, Johaness Trojan, came to Kawartha Lakes and wrote about his experience in the book, Auf der anderen Seite. The book is new item at the Kawartha Lakes Museum & Archives.

Trojan and wife. Photo: KLMA.

Trojan was the author of 31 children’s books and 26 other books. He wrote regularly for the weekly newspaper, Kladderadatsh, and served as editor-in-chief from 1886 to 1909. Since Trojan was also a travel writer, it’s assumed he came to Canada to write, but the reason for his decision to visit and document his journey through Kawartha Lakes is not known.

Trojan arrived in Toronto in June 1900 and headed north through the Muskokas and Haliburton area with J.A. Steele and his wife. The group met up with Thomas and Lillian Stewart at the Stewart cottage on Sturgeon Point, where they stayed a few days before departing to stay at the Stewart house in Lindsay. While in town, Trojan took in the visiting circus and a tour of Lindsay Collegiate Institute.

Auf der anderen Seite, which translates to “from the other side,” devotes a full chapter to Trojan’s experiences in Kawartha Lakes, including his travels aboard the steamers, Manita:

When we had eaten lunch, enjoyed ourselves outdoors, and enjoyed the wonderful scenery, we were called to our Manita, which was lying in the water below. We descended the granite hill on which the inn stands us on board, and were now entering the Stony Lake, which abounds in islands and islets – there are, I think, eight hundred or more of them, some of them showing pretty country houses, others modest boat-houses.

Trojan, 1902.

A more thorough account of Trojan’s trip with photos of Thomas and Lillian Stewart, their house and cottage, is available at the Kawartha Lakes Museum & Archives blog: https://www.klmuseumarchives.ca/from-the-collection/trojan

Books:

Photo: KLMA.

Trojan, Johannes. Auf der anderen Seite. Grote, Berlin. 1902.