MCQ Views and Voices

In this episode of the local gardening series, contributors Julia Frid, Marilyn Mastine and Sharon St-Onge join host Julie Miller to chat about their favourite garden tools - the ones they just can't live without.  Besides rakes and hoes, there are some interesting implements tucked away in their gardening sheds!  Who knew that a subject like "Gardening Tools" could inspire such a great conversation?  Musical interludes this week are from Canadian composer and banjo player, Jayme Stone, drawn from his album "Room of Wonders"...and our feature song is none other than, you guessed it, "The Garden Song."  Happy listening!

This is a mouth-watering episode, as regular contributors and green thumbs Sharon St-Onge, Marilyn Mastine, and Julia Frid are back to talk with host Julie Miller about their favourite vegetables to grow.  Pumpkins, eggplant, peas, tomatoes, spinach and more, including favourite varieties, a hull-less pumpkin grown in Nicolet,  and lots of anecdotes.  They'll give their opinions on the best, most reliable and most intriguing seed companies from which to order seed in Canada.  This episode's featured song is "Happiness Is," from Québec singer-songwriter Jason Lang's wonderful new album, Handled with Care, which truly is, simply, happiness.

For this second installment of our series about gardening,  host Julie Miller and contributors and green thumbs  Julia Frid, Marilyn Mastine, and Sharon St-Onge  share personal stories and thoughts about why they garden and what gardening means to them. You never know what is going to come up when gardeners sit down together for a chat!

We're launching a new series which brings together passionate gardeners with green thumbs who have had their share of cracked pots over the years to share stories and discuss issues related to gardening, with a focus on experience in our own region, the Mauricie and the Centre du Québec.  In this introductory episode, you'll meet the series' regular contributors: Julia Frid, Marilyn Mastine, and Sharon St-Onge - and you'll find out that the MCQ V&V regular host Julie Miller also loves to garden!

English/Welsh poet Zoë Skoulding will be appearing several times at the 38th edition of the Festival International de la poésie de Trois-Rivières.  In this chat with host Julie Miller, Zoë talks about her fascination with translation, her interest in both soundscapes and landscapes, how a visit to Montreal galvanized her to begin speaking French, and how a hidden river is at the heart of her recent award-winning collection of poetry, Footnotes to Water.  To hear some of Zoë's performances, you can look her up on SoundCloud:   https://soundcloud.com/zoeskoulding

This fall (2022) Anya Bussière-Filion entered her 3rd year of medicine at the University of Sherbrooke.   In a chat with host Julie Miller, Anya talks about the program and what brought her to study medicine in the first place.  Originally from Drummondville, Anya has grown up with both English and French, attending elementary and high school and also Cegep in English, before making the switch to full time studies in French at U de S.  She takes a look at how being "in-between" the two languages and cultures  has given her a particular perspective on life and Québec society. Anya is also a regional winner of the Dialogue McGill bursary, awarded to promising students in health and social services who have a proven track record of community involvement.

Beatriz Hausner, one of the poets invited to the Festival International de la Poésie de Trois-Rivières, reads her poem, "High Priestess," taken from her latest collection, Beloved Revolutionary Sweetheart, published by Book*hug Press in 2020.

In this second episode about Trois-Rivières' poetry festival, we meet Beatriz Hausner.  Beatriz has been to the Festival before, and she talks about what makes it special.  Her conversation with host Julie Miller ranges from talking about poetry to how she discovered it, about freedom and what inspires her, and about why she writes in English although her mother tongue is Spanish.   Besides her work in poetry, Beatriz also organizes poetry events, edits a poetry journal, and translates Spanish language poets into English.  In the past, she worked as a librarian, and has been the president of the Literary Translators Association of Canada.  Her most recent collection of poetry is called "Beloved Revolutionary Sweetheart" and was published in 2020 by Book*hug Press.   https://beatrizhausner.com/about

Before his visit to the Festival International de la Poésie de Trois-Rivières this October (2022), Jérôme Melançon gives us a little taste of his work by reading his poem, “Irregularities,” from his English-language chapbook poetry collection, Tomorrow’s Going to Be Bright, published by above/ground press in 2022.  To read the poem for yourself, visit the MCQ Views and Voices companion blog at www.mcqvoices.ca

Jérôme Melançon reads “Solidarité,” a poem from his latest French language collection, En d’sous d’la langue, 2021 (Prise de Parole), then he discusses it with Julie Miller.  To read the poem, visit the MCQ Views and Voices companion blog at www.mcqvoices.ca

Jérôme Melançon is a bilingual professor from the University of Regina who is also a poet, a translator, and a philosopher. He  thinks a lot about language, identity, minorities, and what it's like to be bilingual, living and moving between two languages in Canada. Jerôme is one of the poets invited to the 28th edition of the Festival international de la poésie de Trois-Rivières, which is happening from Sept. 30 to Oct. 9,2022.  In a conversation with host Julie Miller, he talks about poetry and how he got hooked on it, the first thing he ever translated (hint: heavy metal lyrics), what he's looking forward to about the 3R poetry festival, and much more.  He'll also comment on whether or not people should be afraid of poetry; listen in to find out what he has to say about that!

Just before the pandemic, Carole Jones and her husband moved to Drummondville from Ontario.  She was surprised by just how many details and issues came up in moving from one province to another.  And once she was here, the pandemic hit, and she found herself trying to adjust to a new town without being able to go anywhere.  True to style, Carole found a way forward and has been  exploring resources and making connections in the region ever since.  Carole is currently teaching ESL privately part-time, but she understands language learning from both sides since she has had to improve her French since arriving, and her husband has had to pretty much start learning it from scratch.  In this episode, Carole shares some of her experiences of the past few years with host Julie Miller.

Singer-songwriter James Forest was born on the Magdalen Islands but he has made St Mathieu du Parc his home, when he is not travelling and playing his music around the globe. James released a new album called All Shades of Purple that came out during the Covid lockdown.  In a conversation with host Julie Miller, James talks about the album's title, what it's been like for a travelling musician to get through the pandemic, and  how his philosophy of trust and open-mindedness has inspired not only how he makes music but how he lives his life.  It's an inspiring conversation with a musician whose honest lyrics and subtle rhythms will leave you wanting to hear more.

Michael McCall has recently moved to Trois-Rivières from Ottawa.  He is no stranger to microphones, because he cohosts a podcast called FC13 all about Canadian soccer.  Michael joins host Julie Miller not only to talk about why it's a great year to be a soccer fan, but also to chat about bilingualism,  adapting to life in a new city, and what happened recently that has given him a fresh outlook on life.

Trinity Mastine grew up on a farm in a little village in the Centre du Québec, and is now a student at McGill in the Speech Language Pathology Program.  In this chat with host Julie Miller, Trinity talks about the village and farm where she grew up,  and shares her experience of leaving home to study in Montreal - an experience which has opened up both new horizons and new challenges.  There is a currently a huge demand for Speech Language Pathologists, and Trinity talks to us about her chosen field.

The second trailer for the third season of our podcast, celebrating the diversity of views and the  experience of people living and working in the Mauricie and the Centre du Québec.

The third season of MCQ Views and Voices is coming up this fall!  Listen in to hear what's in the works!

Lesley Joy Whitehead, aka Jo Whitehead, was the eldest child of industrialist Charles Ross Whitehead of Trois-Rivières.  Born in 1895, she led a most remarkable and unusual life, which has been all but forgotten in her home country of Canada until now.  Over the course of her work researching the history of the Scottish Women's Hospitals' Serbian Units, Dr. Natasha Stoyce of the UK stumbled on clues which led her to bring the story of Jo Whitehead to the light.  In this episode, Natasha tells host Julie Miller the amazing details that she's uncovered and continues to uncover about an apparently fearless woman who insisted on defining her own self, and who, if alive today, might have identified herself as a non-binary person.

In this very last episode of season two, hosts Julie Miller and François Roy talk a bit about more recent history in Trois-Rivières, discussing important international events such as the Grand Prix de Trois-Rivières and the poetry festival.  François mentions some famous people from the city, and the two hosts talk about the life of Brian Barton, to come full circle with the season's title, From Burton to Barton.  The episode includes some great music from Canadian bands and singer songwriters too, such as Jael Bird Joseph, from 3R.

This week, Julie Miller and François Roy take a look at the summer of 1946, the first peacetime summer after the long and dark war years .  People were picking up their lives and trying to get back to normal, but as often happens after momentous societal upheavals, life was never going to be the same again.  The summer of 46 was special for a lot of reasons, and people in Trois Rivières had reason to cheer right through the summer and into the fall. In fact, as you’ll hear, it was uncanny how many news articles from the Saint Maurice Valley Chronicle that summer mirrored news stories from our own times...