North by Northwest
with Sheryl MacKay

June Goldsmith is a real favourite with listeners to NXNW.  She has a wonderful way of talking about classical music that is entertaining and educational. We always have a great laugh when she's in too! 

For this visit June talks about the symphony form and uses a work from Haydn to illustrate.

Keith Powell has written two books of historical fiction based on some real characters in BC history.  His first book Living in the Shadow of Fisher Peak, is about Jack Fisher who discovered gold in Wild Horse Creek and who was a pioneer in the Flathead Valley.

When I was in Fernie we had a conversation in the library with a view of Fisher Peak to talk about the book.

His latest book is Raising Kain: The Adventurous Life of Conrad Kain.

Frazey Ford and Trish Klein of the Be Good Tanyas stopped in to NXNW to talk about the re-release of Blue Horse (this time as a vinyl record, with some new songs) and their tour. They play in Vancouver and Victoria February 11 and 12.

A few years back poets Jordan Scott and Stephen Collis took several copies of  Darwin's On The The Origin of Species and headed out into the back woods of BC.  They left copies of the book in a variety of climate zones, then came back to collect the volumes a year later.   Now they are working together on a project titled Decomp including words chosen by the environment, Jordan and Stephen's written responses to the texts and photos of the decayed books.  Jordan and Stephen will perform excerpts from Decomp at The Poetry Gabriola Festival which runs February 16-19.

Donovan Hough is having a blast with blacksmithing!  He's a recent graduate of the Kootenay School of the Arts in Nelson where he tried metal working for the first time and fell in love with it.

 His work is part of a group show right now on Granville Island as he is one of the winners this year of the Circle Craft Cooperative Annual Student Scholarships.

You can hear Donovan on Saturday just after the 8 am news.


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Fred Wah is an award winning poet, author, editor and teacher and our new Parliamentary Poet Laureate for Canada. He is the second British Columbian chosen for the appointment. (George Bowering was the first ever PPL a few years back)

It was great to have a chance to talk to Fred about poetry.  His passion for writing is apparent, as is his thoughtful approach and his sense of humor!  And he surprised me with his reaction to his first writing assignment in his new role.