MaudCast: The LMMI Podcast
The MaudCast is the podcast of the L.M. Montgomery Institute. In the MaudCast’s quest to discover cutting edge scholarship about the life and works of Lucy Maud Montgomery, we welcome to the microphone leading academics, emerging scholars, local researchers, and imaginative readers and writers from around the world. Hosted by Dr. Brenton Dickieson, with technical direction from Kristy McKinney, we broadcast from the beautiful campus of the University of Prince Edward Island.
The Maudcast Teaser
The Maudcast Season 1
Dr. Lesley Clement is the L.M. Montgomery Institute’s Visiting Scholar. Lesley has held teaching and administrative positions at various Canadian universities. She has published on visual literacy, empathy, and death in children’s literature. Her work on Montgomery appears in Studies in Canadian Literature and L.M. Montgomery and the Matter of Nature(s). Recent projects include co-editing, with Rita Bode, L.M. Montgomery’s Rainbow Valleys: The Ontario Years, 1911-1942 (2015) and, with Leyli Jamali, Global Perspectives on Death in Children’s Literature (2016).
Laura Leden is a PhD candidate in translation studies at the University of Helsinki, working on the final stages of her thesis on adaptation in translations of girls’ fiction from English into Swedish and Finnish, including translations of Montgomery’s Emily trilogy. Alongside her PhD project, she has written several journal articles and book chapters on the translations of Montgomery’s books and been a regular speaker at the L.M. Montgomery conferences for the last ten years.
Dr. Kate Scarth is the Chair of L.M. Montgomery Studies at UPEI, where she works closely with the L.M. Montgomery Institute, and is also an Assistant Professor of Applied Communication, Leadership, and Culture. She is particularly interested in the relationship between story and place and works on writers from Jane Austen to Montgomery. Her current projects include yourlmmontgomerystory.com, which was featured in June 2020 on CBC. As always, you can check out links to this great project in the show notes.
In this episode, host and producer Brenton Dickieson sits down digitally with Kate Scarth, Chair of L.M. Montgomery Studies at the University of Prince Edward Islands and Alyssa Gillespie, editorial assistant for The Journal of L.M. Montgomery Studies. In discussing our family holiday traditions and our favourite Montgomery Christmas scenes, we also visit with the technical director of the MaudCast, Kristy McKinney. With eggnog lattes in our hands and red currant wine in our hearts, the MaudCast team toasts this strange year that was with hopes for the years to come. The episode concludes with Brenton’s reading of “Christmas at Red Butte,” Montgomery’s prairie Christmas story, and one that reminds us of the importance of family and self-sacrifice--even in the midst of adversity, isolation, and distance from the ones we love. Merry Christmas!
In this episode of the MaudCast we chat with Jenny Litster, a cultural historian and specialist on L.M. Montgomery and her Scottish and Prince Edward Island roots.
In this episode, host Brenton Dickieson sits down with the legendary Professor Rita Bode, a scholar of women writers, including L.M. Montgomery and American Women’s Regionalist Fiction (the title of a recent collection of essays that Brenton in this episode calls “the Gothic book”). Rita has co-edited two recent critical volumes in Montgomery studies, and the discussion ranges across the great content of those works and Rita’s observations. And of course, Rita and Brenton talk books, sharing their experiences of some of the books we love to love--and some we struggle to love.
In this episode, host Brenton Dickieson sits down with the legendary Mary Beth Cavert--an independent scholar who specializes in the personal, historical, and literary context of Montgomery’s kinship ties. Beyond various published essays, Beth publishes, edits, and writes The Shining Scroll, the journal of the L.M. Montgomery Literary Society. Brenton and Beth discuss L.M. Montgomery’s lifelong correspondence with George B. MacMillan, a Scottish writer. Brenton and Beth also talk about book collecting and book dedications--both fruitful activities for the reader of Lucy Maud Montgomery’s works.
In this episode, the 2018 and 2020 winners of the Elizabeth R. Epperly award for Outstanding Early Career Paper sit down for a discussion about Montgomery studies and emerging scholarship. After discussing Bonnie Tulloch’s award-winning paper on “Canadian "Anne-Girl[s]": Literary Descendents of Montgomery's Redheaded Heroine, there is a nice surprise as Bonnie takes over the microphone, interviewing host Brenton Dickieson on his recent paper about Anne’s House of Dreams.
The Maudcast Season 2
In this episode, host Brenton Dickieson sits down with Allison McBain Hudson, a Canadian-Irish writer and Montgomery scholar. Following an MA in Children’s and Young Adult Literature that focused on Montgomery’s rural Canadian romanticism in Anne of Green Gables and the Emily trilogy, Allison has moved on to PhD studies in literature at Dublin City University. Brenton and Allison discuss her research, how she moves from “metaphysical” ideas in Montgomery’s writings in her MA research, to the discovery of “physical” objects in her doctoral dissertation. In particular, Allison discusses her research in “material culture” in L.M. Montgomery’s novels--the tangible, tactile objects that make up the details of everyday life. These objects, like houses, books, portraits, mittens, and hanging hams provide atmosphere and setting in the novel, but they also provide connection points between the characters and carry other kinds of significance for the reader. While Allison and Brenton chat about the Emily trilogy throughout, their conversation about books ranges out into the fantastic, considering the “material culture” of objects like wardrobes, sewing machines, rings, and mundane portkeys in writers like C.S. Lewis, J.R.R. Tolkien, J.K. Rowling, Madeleine L’Engle, Ursula K. Le Guin, Katherine Paterson, and Annie Dillard.
In this episode, host Brenton Dickieson was joined by two Atlantic Canadian L.M. Montgomery scholars, E. Holly Pike and Laura Robinson. Laura and Holly share about their labour of longsuffering love, the richly edited volume, L.M. Montgomery and Gender, recently published by McGill-Queen’s University Press. In discussion about some of the thoughtful essays in the collection, readers will enjoy hearing about the complex relationship of masculinities and feminitities in Montgomery’s novels and short stories. In particular, Brenton, Holly, and Laura press in on “what L.M. Montgomery is doing to us as readers,” focussing on her particularly deft inversive and subversive tendencies. Within a broad-ranging conversation about books, research, and the social moment, Laura and Holly also share their stories of discovering the imaginative possibilities of working critically with Montgomery’s works and their hopes for an ever-increasing diversity of voices within the Montgomery scholarly community.
In this episode, host Brenton Dickieson sits down with scholar and fiction writer, Melanie J. Fishbane to talk about how Mel brings together the creative and the critical in dialogue with L.M. Montgomery’s life and work. At the centre of their discussion is Mel’s literary YA historical fiction, Maud. They discuss Mel’s research and discovery process, getting to the heart of how Lucy Maud Montgomery--”Maud” to her friends and family--became a living character in Mel’s imagination. They discuss Mel’s artistic and character choices, including the difficult conversation about Montgomery and indigenous peoples she encountered, especially in her year in Prince Albert, Saskatchewan. Mel’s choices in the novel, we see--including an elegant moment of drawing the question to the surface--are informed by sensitive research, scholarly insight, writerly instinct, and the ethical choice to seek consultation. Listeners to this episode will appreciate an in-depth discussion about the writing process, and hear about Melanie’s scholarly work, including a recent paper bringing together two Annes--Anne Frank and Anne of Green Gables--woven together thoughtfully with Melanie’s own writerly perspective. Listeners will also enjoy conversation about great books, journaling, the perils of workplace cats, and the importance of coloured pens.
In this episode, Brenton Dickieson is pleased to connect with Montgomery-inspired poet and scholar, Julie A. Sellers, on her collection of poems, Kindred Verse: Poems inspired by Anne of Green Gables–a collection filled photographs, reflections, and poems in conversation with the eight Anne books by L.M. Montgomery. Rooted in images of home, the natural, and the adventurous imagination, Kindred Verse is a reflection of how Montgomery’s works and the character of Anne have reshaped Julie’s own sense of the possible. Inspired by readings from Kindred Verses, Julie and Brenton discuss themes of nostalgia, friendship, and landscapes both natural and imaginative.
In this episode, historian Alan MacEachern joins Brenton Dickieson to talk about Alan’s work as a historian of place and as the 2022-23 L.M. Montgomery Institute Visiting Scholar. Dr. Alan MacEachern is a Canadian history professor at the University of Western Ontario. He has recently published a book on the Miramichi fire, and an upcoming book with UPEI’s Dr. Ed MacDonald, The Summer Trade: A History of Tourism on Prince Edward Island, will be out any day now. As they are both “Island boys,” Brenton and Alan discuss this unique place to visit and call home, Prince Edward Island, and how Montgomery’s life and works help people from around the world become intrigued with PEI. They talk about the upcoming Montgomery Institute Conference in June 2022, with the theme of “L.M. Montgomery and Re-Vision.” Alan also shares about his current research project on the diary of Myrtle Webb, bringing to life the family that lived at the home that inspired the “Green Gables” in Montgomery’s iconic Anne books.
The MaudCast Team
Host and Founding Producer: Brenton Dickieson
Founding Co-Producer: Kate Scarth
Technical Director: Kristy McKinney
Visual Design: Heidi Haering

Credits and Links
Find the MaudCast on Twitter and Instagram @LMMIMaudCast
L.M. Montgomery Institute
Kindred Spaces Research Collection Online
The Journal of L.M. Montgomery Studies
L.M. Montgomery and Vision Virtual Conference Space
Brenton Dickieson twitter: @BrentonDana
Brenton Dickieson website
Susato’s “Selection from The Danserye: III. Les Quatre Branle” performed by the UPEI Wind Symphony, directed by Dr. Karem J Simon, available for purchase.
Special thanks to the Robertson Library at UPEI and all of our community partners.
The MaudCast is supported in part by funding from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council.