Local author Lucinda Hage has released a non-fiction book entitled What Time is the 9:20 Bus? A Journey to a Meaningful Life, Disability and All — the first book of its kind in Canada. There are hundreds of books about children with disabilities, but none about their successful transition to adulthood.

Unable to have her own child and anxious to adopt, Lucinda is overjoyed when a newborn baby is granted to her and her husband. Devastation follows when the baby, Paul, is diagnosed with a serious genetic disorder that means he will be intellectually challenged and require medical intervention for the rest of his life. Lucinda’s already-tenuous marriage disintegrates, and she becomes a single mother caring for a difficult and fragile child.

Artist Spotlight: Anne-Marie Kornachuk

Anne-Marie Kornachuk may be less in the local limelight these days, since the time when she was the Director of the Art School of Peterborough and had shows at the now defunct Russell Gallery.

As a successful commercial artist, her exquisite oil paintings are more often seen south of the border in places like New York, Cincinnati, and Los Angeles.

A little closer to home, in Lakefield, she is represented by the Trias Gallery in Oakville and has shown work at the Art Gallery of Peterborough.

If Abbott and Costello were in a Quentin Tarantino film, you’d get The Dumb Waiter.

Kate Story directs two of Peterborough finest actors — Dan Fewings and Brad Brackenridge — in a one-act dark comedy which is as funny as it is suspenseful.

Director Jerry Allen has taken some big risks staging The Beauty Queen of Leenane at the Peterborough Theatre Guild, but the risks definitely pay off.

The most provocative production of the current Guild season, the show straddles a fine line between “black comedy” and “psychological drama”, which managed to both delight and shock an unsuspecting audience during its opening night performance.

We take it for granted: the simple ordered processes of our everyday lives. Getting ourselves dressed in the morning. Putting together a meal. Even something as passive as enjoying a TV program, a movie, or a book.

As simple as these things may seem, they can become all but impossible for any of the almost 6 million North Americans who suffer from Alzheimer’s disease or other forms of dementia.