Beatrix Potter: Of Mice and Mushrooms

Beatrix Potter is most famous as the creator of a certain blue-jacketed bunny, but her life was so much bigger than Mr. Mcgregor's garden. She defied her parents and upper class British convention to marry well and settle down to a life of tea and drawing rooms - instead she became a shrewd merchandizer of her own work, and ultimately became a huge force for land conservation in the well-worth preserving Lake District. And she was an expert on mushrooms! What more could you ask for in life? 

Susanna Moodie: Iconic Canadian Chronicler!

Susanna Moodie is well known to English lit majors from Cape Breton to Vancouver Island, but her full life story is even more interesting than the years depicted in her famous book Roughing It in the Bush suggest. Abolitionist, successful writer, independent lady, Ontario brush clearer, and now Canadian icon: Susanna Moodie probably didn't mean to help define the Canadian identity, but she's right up there with Sir John and Gordon Lightfoot!

LM Montgomery: Patron Saint of Spunky Redheads

Prince Edward Island is well-known for its red dirt, its potatoes, and for being the birth-place of a certain polite commonwealth nation. But Anne of Green Gables is what draws in thousands of tourists from around the world every year. This week we look at Anne's witty, intrepid, and complicated creator, Lucy Maud Montgomery, one of Canada's best-known and most beloved literary heroes.