History, Storytelling, and Place-Based Talks
Chris Higgins – Author Page on Amazon
Chris Higgins is an author, educator, and historian who creates engaging, place-based presentations rooted in Toronto’s neighbourhoods, archives, and lived experience. His talks blend traditional storytelling with thoughtful use of technology – maps, images, media, and digital tools – to help audiences see familiar places and histories in new ways, whether in person or virtually.
He draws on three published books, each offering a different entry point into history, research, storytelling, and place.
The Books Behind the Talks
Brick by Brick: Swansea Public School, 1892–2020
This deeply researched local history began with a single filing cabinet of forgotten documents and grew into a layered portrait of a school and its community across more than a century.
This work resonates with former students, educators, community members, and anyone interested in how to study a familiar subject deeply enough to uncover new stories. Presentations based on Brick by Brick often focus on research methods, archival digging, oral history, and how everyday institutions quietly shape neighbourhood identity.
Riverstoryz: Conversations on the Humber River
At first glance, the Humber River feels well known — a place we walk, photograph, and celebrate. This book looks beneath that surface, uncovering long-forgotten stories of crime, drownings, pollution, erosion, industry, and environmental change.
It works especially well as a case study in urban geography, environmental history, and hidden infrastructure, showing how layers of history sit quietly beneath the landscapes we think we know.
The Gaol Carpenter’s Diary
This darker work of historical fiction may appeal to fans of true crime, historical fiction, and those curious about the more complicated side of Toronto’s past.
The book tells eleven notorious 19th-century Toronto crime stories — once widely known, now largely forgotten — and explores the social, legal, and moral worlds surrounding them. Based on archival records and period sources, the novel examines poverty, race, addiction, mental health, justice, and public punishment, including executions carried out at two of Toronto’s early jails.
What These Presentations Can Be
Presentations draw from one or more of these books and are shaped to suit the audience and setting. Possible approaches include:
History Through Story
Using real events, people, and places, audiences explore how history is recorded, whose voices survive, and how storytelling can help us understand the past without simplifying it.
Creative Writing & Story Development
A behind-the-scenes look at how stories grow from maps, newspapers, archives, and place. Ideal for writing classes, drama programs, and anyone curious about turning research into narrative.
A Creative Way Into History
An alternative to textbook history — combining images, headlines, maps, and storytelling to make the past tangible. Well suited to history, language, media literacy, and interdisciplinary learning.
Place, Memory, and Neighbourhoods
A strongly place-based experience that connects stories to streets, rivers, schools, and institutions, and asks how memory — personal and collective — is shaped over time.
Neighbourhoods Matter
Talks are grounded in real locations across Toronto, including Old Town, Corktown, Cabbagetown, The Ward, Riverdale, the waterfront and Fort York, the Don River and Don Jail, Liberty Village, Parkdale, High Park, Swansea, Lambton Mills, and Weston.
Audiences leave with a new sense of what lies beneath the places they walk every day.
Who It’s For
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Schools (Grades 7–12)
Curriculum-connected sessions adaptable to:-
History
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English / Language Arts
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Creative Writing
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Drama
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Media Literacy
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Film and video storytelling
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Libraries, heritage groups, and historical societies
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Genealogy and family-history groups
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Community organizations and seniors’ residences
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Book clubs and writing groups
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Media audiences — interviews, podcasts, and public conversations
Format & Delivery
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Length: Typically 60 minutes including Q&A (flexible)
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Delivery: In-person or virtual
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Includes:
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Visuals (maps, archival images, headlines)
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Readings (optional)
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Historical context and discussion
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Q&A
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Now booking for the 2026 season.