Oct
18
Ted Barris
One of Maud’s characters notes that life is not a straight line, but a series of bends, all worth exploring. Ted Barris has invested his professional lifetime exploring the world around those bends. For fifty years he’s worked as a freelance journalist, broadcaster and author in Canada and the U.S. His writing has regularly appeared in the national press, as well as magazines as diverse as Air Force, esprit de corps and Zoomer. He has also worked as host/contributor for most CBC Radio current affairs programs, PBS in the U.S. and on TV Ontario. Ted Barris is the author of 20 bestselling, nonfiction books, most of them about Canadians in wartime. His book The Great Escape won the 2014 Libris Best Non-Fiction Book in Canada. His book Dam Busters received the RCAF Association NORAD Trophy in 2018. His 2019 book Rush to Danger was long-listed for the 2020 RBC Taylor Prize for Non-Fiction in Canada. In 2011, Barris received the Minister of Veterans’ Affairs Commendation; in 2012 the Queen Elizabeth II Diamond Jubilee Medal; in 2022 the Queen Elizabeth II Platinum Jubilee Award, and in the same year, he was appointed Member of the Order of Canada.
Jennifer Carroll
Jennifer Carroll is a graduate of the inaugural year of the Canadore College Theatre Arts program in North Bay, Ontario. Upon graduation Jennifer moved to Dublin to live and work abroad as an actor, producer, writer and stage manager. She most enjoyed working with theatre companies focused on developing new, original work from young Irish writers. Her focus on dramaturgy and workshop production has informed much of her theatre career to date. Jennifer is also a stage manager and producer, most notably for the Watershed Shakespeare Company and its production of King Lear, starring the late David Fox, as well as producing for Ontario touring company Proscenium Club for the past 7 years. She has spent twelve years performing Maud of Leaskdale for the Lucy Maud Montgomery Society of Ontario at the Historic Leaskdale Church, as well as touring the production around Ontario and the Maritimes. The show chronicles 15 years that the famed author lived in the picturesque Ontario countryside, recreating Maud’s life through her own words kept in detailed journals.
Mary Beth Cavert
Mary Beth Cavert, an independent Montgomery scholar, specializes in the personal, historical, and literary context of Montgomery’s kinship ties. Her research has been included in The Complete Journals of L.M. Montgomery, and she has been a contributing writer in L.M. Montgomery’s Rainbow Valleys, The Intimate Life of L.M. Montgomery, and The Lucy Maud Montgomery Album. She publishes The Shining Scroll and the L.M. Montgomery Literary Society social media accounts and website. She has finished editing the complete correspondence from L.M.M.’ s to George B. MacMillan, L.M. Montgomery’s Letters to Scotland, and is updating a manuscript of Montgomery’s book dedications, L.M. Montgomery’s Kindred Spirits. She is a member of the editorial board of the Journal of L.M. Montgomery Studies and a recipient of the 2020 L.M. Montgomery Institute Legacy Award.