If you didn’t already know how Agatha Christie and Archaeology were connected, then this lecture by Canadian archaeologist Dr. Amy Barron is your chance to learn how the great mystery novelist’s life is revealed within the pages of her books. Her love of the Middle East and the life she lived with her famous archaeologist husband provided the basis for some of her greatest novels including, Murder on the Orient Express, Death on the Nile, and Murder in Mesopotamia. Dr. Barron will discuss Christie’s life, travels, and the fabulous ancient sites whose mysteries she helped uncover.

Amy Barron received her PhD at the University of Toronto in the field of Mesopotamian history and archaeology, specializing on the military history of Iron Age Assyria. She has excavated predominantly in the Middle East but has travelled widely studying the archaeology of various remote parts of the world from Peru to China. Amy has taught archaeology, ancient history and classics at the universities of Toronto and Guelph and presently teaches museum studies in Fleming College’s post-graduate program. She has worked in the museum world for over 30 years and loves sharing her passion for the past.

In this “Conversation between two storytellers,” who are also two friends, Charlotte Gray, the author of twelve best-selling books of (mostly) Canadian popular history, including The Massey Murder: A Maid, her Master, and the Trial that Shocked a Country, and Maureen Jennings, author of the Murdoch Mysteries books on which the popular television series is based, as well as three other series featuring fictional detectives or criminal profilers, each set in a different historical era, will discuss their respective approaches to storytelling, the advantages and disadvantages of the fiction and non-fiction genres, how they select the subjects of their books and conduct their research, and whatever else may come up! An audience Q&A session will follow their discussion. This event is co-sponsored by the Canadian Institute for Historical Education, www.CIHE.ca.

BIOGRAPHIES

Charlotte Gray is a non-fiction author based in Ottawa who has written twelve bestsellers of biography and popular history. Her most recent book is Passionate Mothers, Powerful Sons: The Lives of Jennie Jerome Churchill and Sara Delano Roosevelt. She is also the author of Sisters in the Wilderness; the Lives of Susanna Moodie and Catharine Parr Traill, The Massey Murder and Reluctant Genius: Alexander Graham Bell and the Passion for Invention. Charlotte has served as chair of Canada’s National History Society, and has won the Pierre Berton Award for popularizing Canadian history. She has also chaired the Art Canada Institute board and is vice-president of the Sir Winston Churchill Society of Ottawa. Born in England and a graduate of Oxford and the LSE, Charlotte teaches at Carleton University, holds five honorary degrees, is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada and a member of the Order of Canada.

Crime fiction writer Maureen Jennings was born in the UK and now lives in Toronto. She has four ongoing book series, each set in a different era. The first with Detective William Murdoch, is set in late Victorian Toronto. These books were adapted for television and MURDOCH MYSTERIES, now in its eighteenth season, is shown in over one hundred territories around the world. Her second series features Christine Morris, a contemporary British criminal profiler, and a third, with Detective Tom Tyler, is set in Britain during World War Two. Her most recent series returns to pre-war Toronto in the 1930s: THE PARADISE CAFÉ series features a female Private Investigator named Charlotte Frayne. In 2024 she was awarded the Grand Master award by Crime Writers of Canada. And in 2024 she was appointed an Officer of the Order of Canada.

National bestselling author and professional adventure Adam Shoalts will join us to discuss his expeditions in Canada’s wilderness, including especially his brand new book, Vanished Beyond the Map: The Mystery of Lost Explorer Hubert Darrell. It is the story of a legendary lost explorer who disappeared more than a century ago and Shoalts’s quest to retrace his route to unravel the mystery of his disappearance. This is a Book Launch event and copies of Adam’s books will be available for sale and signing by the author.

BIOGRAPHY
Adam Shoalts is a professional adventurer and Westaway Explorer-in-Residence at the Royal Canadian Geographical Society. His expeditions range from mapping rivers to archaeological projects, but Shoalts is best known for his long solo wilderness journeys, including crossing alone nearly 4,000 kilometres of Canada’s Arctic. Named one of the “greatest living explorers” by the CBC and declared “Canada’s Indiana Jones” by the Toronto Star, Shoalts’s latest quest was retracing the route of a lost explorer, the subject of his new latest book Vanished Beyond the Map. His other books include Where the Falcon Flies, The Whisper on the Night Wind, A History of Canada in 10 Maps, and Beyond the Trees: A Journey Alone Across Canada's Arctic, all of them national bestsellers. He has a PhD from McMaster University in history, and in his free time, enjoys long walks in the woods.

“Never in the field of human conflict…” are Churchill’s words that set the Battle of Britain in the summer of 1940 apart from all others, as the greatest aerial battle in history. As the German Luftwaffe sought to destroy the Royal Air Force, gain air superiority, and invade the British Isles, Commonwealth fighter pilots scrambled from U.K. airfields day after day and flew Hurricane and Spitfire fighter aircraft to thwart Hitler’s plan. They won but paid dearly. Among the 2,937 aircrew in this first test of Allied skill, resilience, and courage, over 100 pilots flew with the “Canada” patch on their shoulder, and another 200 erks (ground crew) kept their fighters in the air. As Churchill continued, never was “so much owed by so many to so few.” Ted Barris has assembled stories of Canadian airmen, ground crew, as well as engineers, aeronautical designers, medical officers and civilians who answered the call and turned back the very real threat of Nazi invasion. In this lecture based on his book, he will tell the story from a Canadian perspective.

BIOGRAPHY

Ted Barris is an award-winning journalist, author, and broadcaster. His writing has regularly appeared in the national press, and magazines as diverse as Air Force, esprit de corps and Zoomer. He has also worked as host/contributor for CBC Radio, NPR and TV Ontario. He taught journalism at Toronto’s Centennial College for 18 years. Barris is the author of 22 bestselling, non-fiction books, many focused on wartime Canada, including The Great Escape: A Canadian Story, which won the 2014 Libris Non-Fiction Book of the Year Award, and books on hockey and music. In 2011, he was one of 19 civilians presented with the Minister of Veterans’ Affairs Commendation. Barris was the recipient of the Queen Elizabeth II’s Diamond Jubilee Medal and, in 2024, was made a Member of the Order of Canada, “for advancing our understanding of Canadian military history as an acclaimed historical author, journalist and broadcaster.”