This week, Fika with Vicky welcomes Author Janet Trull. We’ll be looking into her books End of the Line and Something’s Burning. Quote from Janet: “The backroads are unpaved, unplowed and unpopular. All the best stories start here.” When I came into contact with End of the Line, I had to agree. It had found my sweet spot. Ordinary people living their lives become extraordinary stories of resilience when a pen is placed in the correct hands. Janet Trull has those hands. About End of the Line: Haliburton, Ontario, 1878. The new Victoria Rail Line delivers hundreds of immigrants to the last station in the Northern Townships. Some are wealthy, ready to take advantage of new opportunities. Most are poor and illiterate. The farmland is free. All you must do is build a cabin and raise crops out of Precambrian rock. The fortunate ones find their way up the ridge to the Nunnery where women practice traditions from mixed ancestries. They are skilled in midwifery and hunting. Are you hungry? Lonely? Do you need a cure for venereal disease? The nuns can help. Too bad the moral folk in the village disapprove. The ones who make laws and build churches and profit from felled trees. It takes a brutal murder to reveal the worst of human greed and the best of the human heart. The dead have much to teach the living at the end of the line. About Something’s Burning: A collection of short fiction about betrayal and belonging in times of social upheaval. Small town settings. Big world themes. About Janet: Janet Trull lives in the Haliburton Highlands, a land of blue lakes and rocky shores. She is the author of two critically acclaimed collections of short fiction, Hot Town and Something’s Burning, both published by At Bay Press , Winnipeg. With small town settings and big world themes, her stories examine the tension between neighbours, genders, and generations during times of social and cultural change. A graduate of English at McMaster University, Trull focused on literacy throughout her career as an educator. She was a Reading Recovery teacher, a Literacy Coach and a Student Achievement Officer for the Ontario Ministry of Education. Her essays, professional writing and short stories have appeared in a wide variety of publications, including the Globe and Mail, Toronto Star, Canadian Living Magazine, Prairie Fire, The New Quarterly, subTerrain Magazine, and Geist. Subscribers to the Haliburton County Echo recognize Trull as a frequent contributor, with nostalgic essays about skinny dips, campfires and lazy afternoons in hammocks. These are accessible on her website, trullstories.com Janet Trull is the recipient of several awards, including a CBC Canada Writes challenge, a Western Magazine Award nomination, and a Commonwealth Fiction prize. Terry Fallis, two-time winner of the Stephen Leacock Medal for Humour, says, “Janet Trull knows her way around people and communities as well as the issues that hold them together, and sometimes break them apart.”