An Evening with Dorothy Thompson

On May 23, 2013, we attended the launch of Dorothy L. Thompson’s book, Threads from the Loom of Time. Please enjoy the write-up from this event, and our biography of Dorothy Lenore Thompson (1941-2020)

Dorothy Thompson at book launch at Lindsay branch library.

On May 23, 2013, the Kawartha Lakes Public Library hosted Dorothy Thompson, author of Threads From The Loom Of Time, as part of the Local Author Series. Chief Librarian Linda Kent introduced Thompson to a crowded, eager roomful. Thompson captivated the audience with passages read aloud from her book and photos of her ancestors.

Threads From The Loom Of Time is a fictionalized account of the life and times of Thompson’s ancestors. Her book could be considered part of a genre with the freshly-coined term “faction”, meaning fiction based on facts, for Thompson’s book is made up of the stories about her grandparents handed down through the generations.

Her story also covers a fair bit of history in Ontario. Ever heard of The Battle of Crysler’s Farm? When Thompson’s Casselman ancestors emigrated to Canada, they owned land along the…

View original post 211 more words

R. D. Lawrence (1921-2003)

Ronald Douglas Lawrence (1921-2003) lived in many places and tried many things. Among his accomplishments he and his second wife, Joan, maintained a wilderness property, “The Place”, near Uphill (page 219, The Place in the Forest) in Kawartha Lakes (then Victoria County) where Lawrence studied the local wolf pack. He wrote about it in The Place in the Forest. Then they bought a 350-acre farm of mostly wilderness, “North Star Farm,” where they cared for orphaned and abandoned animals. He chronicled the humorous account of this time in the book, The Zoo That Never Was. Lawrence sold the property after Joan’s death.

Lawrence was a Canadian naturalist and wildlife author of over 30 books.

Born on a ship off the coast of Spain, Lawrence was raised in Spain and at age 14 lied about his age so he could fight in the Spanish Civil War. He served for two years until he found himself outnumbered in the Pyrenees and fled to France. He made his way back home just in time for the arrival of WWII. He enlisted with the British and went to war again. He participated in D-Day at Normandy where he was seriously injured.

After the war, Lawrence he enrolled at Cambridge University where he studied biology for three years but did not complete his degree. He returned to Spain where he worked as a journalist and novelist.

He moved to Canada in 1954 and became a reporter for the Toronto Star. He also worked for the Winnipeg Press and Toronto Telegram. Among his reporting duties, he went to Africa as a foreign correspondent.

Lawrence and his third wife bought property in Haliburton. Lawrence helped establish the Haliburton Forest Wolf Centre.

He died in Haliburton in 2003.

Books set in Kawartha Lakes:

The Place in the Forest (1967)

The Zoo That Never Was (1981)

Books:

Wildlife in Canada (1966)

The Place in the Forest (1967)

Where the Water Lilies Grow (1968)

The Poison Makers (1969)

Cry Wild (1970)

Maple Syrup (1971)

Wildlife in North America: Mammals (1974)

Wildlife in North America: Birds (1974)

Paddy (1977)

Discover Ste. Marie (1978)

The North Runner (1979)

Secret Go the Wolves (1980)

The Study of Life: A Naturalist’s View (1980)

The Zoo That Never Was (1981)

Voyage of the Stella (1982)

The Ghost Walker (1983)

Canada’s National Parks (1983)

The Shark (1985)

In Praise of Wolves (1986)

Trans-Canada Country, 1986

The Natural History of Canada (1988)

For the Love of Mike (Pour L’Amour de Mike) (1989)

Wolves (1990)

The White Puma (1990)

Trail of the Wolf (1993)

The Green Trees Beyond (1994) – memoir

A Shriek in the Forest Night (1996)

Owls, the Silent Fliers (1997)

Hollay Ghadery

Hollay Ghadery is a multi-genre writer living in rural Ontario on Anishinaabe land. She has her MFA in Creative Writing from the University of Guelph. Her acclaimed memoir on mixed-race identity and mental illness, Fuse, was released by Guernica Editions’ MiroLand imprint in Spring 2021. Her personal essays have also appeared on Today’s Parents and CBC Parents. You can find her on Instagram @hollayghadery and Twitter @Hollay2.

Author of:

Fuse

Linwood Barclay

During his teen years, author Linwood Barclay lived at Green Acres Trailer Park in Bobcaygeon. He writes about the experience in his memoir, Last Resort.

Last Resort

Other works:

Chase
Parting Shot
The Twenty-Three
Far From True
No Time for Goodbye
Broken Promise
Fear the Worst
Trust Your Eyes
Final Assignment
Never Look Away
Too Close to Home
Never Saw It Coming
The Accident
Bad Move
No Safe House

J. Stephen Thompson

J. Stephen Thompson is a retired public health microbiologist, born in Toronto, raised in Parry Sound, Ontario, and now living with his wife in Kawartha Lakes, Ontario at the edge of the Carden Plain.

His science background continues to inform his writing. He published more than three dozen papers in peer-reviewed scientific journals. Lincoln Cathedral is his second novel. His first novel, The Aftermath, was researched while working in post-war Kosova.

Following his father’s death in 2003 he published a book of his father’s photography, Reflections Through a Special Lens and republished his father’s short World War II memoir, Bomber Crew.

Thompson coauthored several collective projects with other local writers, Tales from the Raven Café, a collaborative novel, and The Kawartha Soul Project, The Kawartha Imagination Project, story anthologies with Canadian Authors – Peterborough, and contributed to Kawartha Lakes Stories: Autumn. A short story, Aubergine, was published in the on-line magazine overtheredline.com in 2013.

Website:

www.jstephenthompson.ca