Dropped Threads 3 (35 page)

CHANTAL KREVIAZUK
I lived in Winnipeg, Manitoba, for my first twenty years, then moved to Toronto when I released my first album. Now I commute between Los Angeles and Toronto, where I live with my husband and our sons, Rowan and Lucca. Our life together is fulfilling, juggling the demands and joys of parenthood, the rich careers as artists and writers/producers, and the work we do for organizations such as Warchild Canada and the Canadian Mental Health Association. My career has taught me there is so much more to living in this world than self-perpetuation and consumerism. Therein lies my greatest discovery.

SILKEN LAUMANN
My life is a medley of parenting, inspirational speaking and writing, friends and family and time for my own growth
and reflection. It is wonderful when a writing project can touch upon all of these. Writing this piece was cathartic in that it provided an opportunity to reflect on all that is contradictory as well as all that is beautiful in mothering; I find myself more peaceful in the experience now. I live an alternately harried and peaceful life in Victoria, B.C., when not travelling for speaking engagements all across North America.

JODI LUNDGREN
Words and movement have impassioned me since childhood. Victoria-raised, I earned a doctorate in English at the University of Washington while training and performing as a modern dancer. I published a novel,
Touched
, and have recently written another for young adults from the perspective of a teenage dancer. After spending two years as writer-in-residence at Thompson Rivers University, I now live in Nanaimo, B.C. In “Pitch: A Dancer’s Journal,” I explore the place where discipline and exhilaration coincide.

ANN-MARIE MACDONALD
I am a novelist, a playwright and an actor. I have performed in theatres across Canada and in numerous television series and feature films, including
Better Than Chocolate
. My plays include
Goodnight Desdemona (Good Morning Juliet)
and
Belle Moral: A Natural History
. I am also the author of two novels,
Fall on Your Knees
and
The Way the Crow Flies
.

C. B. MACKINTOSH
I was born and raised in Walkerton, Ontario, but my heart found its home in Banff, where I work among artists and walk up mountains on my lunch hours. I wrote this piece because my husband saw the call for proposals, and my
mentor, Marni Jackson, suggested, “Write something about the mountains.” Writing is, and has always been, my trail through the wilderness. I am currently navigating my first book.

BARBARA MCLEAN
Permanently a farmer, temporarily a teacher of English and Women’s Studies, I combined my passions in my book,
Lambsquarters: Scenes From a Handmade Life
. As a shepherd I am acquainted with grief and interment, for keeping livestock inevitably results in deadstock: stillborn lambs lie buried in the bush and extinct ewes sprout alfalfa in the fields. The death of my parents makes it possible to print the story of what I discovered through finding my sister’s ashes.

HEATHER MALLICK
I am a constant reader, a feminist, a socialist, a francophile, a columnist and a number of other things. My first book, published by Penguin Canada, was a diary entitled
Pearls in Vinegar
, and I am now working on two new works of nonfiction. My essay, “The Inoculation,” written with much wincing and disinfection of typing fingers, is intended as a donation to women and girls, in the hope that it might direct them away from similar disasters.

BARBARA MITCHELL
I am a writer and a university lecturer living in Peterborough, Ontario. I was raised in High River, Alberta, where, at the age of fifteen, I met my husband on a piano bench. For the past fifteen years we have been involved in a writerly duet—two volumes of a biography on his father, W. O. Mitchell. “Finding My Way,” about family connections and disconnections, was sparked by my musings about
the time spent buried in Mitchell history and the recent discovery of my own repressed family history.

BERNICE MORGAN
I was born in Newfoundland and have lived all my life here—a place that fills my imagination, exhilarates me and drives me to despair. My parents, Sadie Vincent of Cape Island, Bonavista Bay, and William Vardy of Random Island, Trinity Bay, came into St. John’s during the Depression. Stories about the outposts they left behind provided the background for my novels,
Random Passages
and
Waiting for Time
. Wartime St. John’s is the setting for most of the stories in my third book,
Topography of Love
, and I hope the novel I am now working on will lead me eventually into St. John’s of 2005.

LORRI NEILSEN GLENN
I was raised in railway towns on the prairies and moved to Nova Scotia over twenty years ago. After years as an ethnographer, a professor and an author of books on research and feminist issues, I began to write poetry and essays, and now wonder what took me so long. The ocean, the prairie horizon and stories of dauntless women inspire me equally. I was appointed Poet Laureate of Halifax for 2005–2009.

PATRICIA PEARSON
I was born in Mexico City into a Foreign Service family and spent my childhood trotting after my parents from country to country, occupying myself by writing stories and telling fibs. One of which was that I was born in Mexico City “during an earthquake.” This love of embellishment was tempered by a career in journalism, but has recently been given free rein again in my novels
Playing House
and
Believe Me
.

BETH POWNING
I spent my childhood in a creaky, mouse-ridden farmhouse in northeast Connecticut. I studied creative writing at Sarah Lawrence College and in 1972, at the age of twenty-three, moved to New Brunswick with my husband, Peter. I’ve written about our remote maritime farm in the memoirs
Seeds of Another Summer, Shadow Child
and
Edge Seasons
. My first novel,
The Hatbox Letters
, drew upon my memories of my grandparents. I’m one now myself. Maeve and Bridget live just down the road.

JUDY REBICK
I have been an activist on various issues since my late twenties. I’ve just turned sixty and am still at it. Young people always ask me how I have stayed active for so long without getting discouraged, so I thought I would contribute a piece on how my life as an activist was born in personal rebellion and moved on from there.

SUSAN RILEY
After twenty-five years writing for newspapers and producing for the CBC, I studied law at the same time both my children were in university. I am now working as a lawyer, living between Winnipeg and an island in Lake of the Woods and writing about things that matter to me. I wrote about Larry because his story inspired my daughter and me, to our surprise, one sad fall weekend.

LAURIE SARKADI
I moved to the Northwest Territories as a young woman and travelled the Arctic as the
Edmonton Journal
‘s northern correspondent. I’m still here, raising a globe-tripping family in the wilderness, grateful for the natural grandeur
and insightful people in my life. (“Hi Mom!”) Sometimes I work at the CBC, sometimes I write songs … and once, I had the luxury of spending months at home in silence to write “The Bear Within.”

BARBARA SCOTT
I work as a freelance writer, editor and creative writing instructor in Calgary. My first book, a collection of short stories entitled
The Quick
, won the City of Calgary W. O. Mitchell Book Prize and the Howard O’Hagan Award for Short Fiction. I recently co-edited an anthology of essays on the experience of publishing a first book, entitled
First Writes
, and am currently at work on a novel. In writing “Tethers” I realized that while my relationship with my mother was difficult, it led me to the writing life I treasure—her greatest gift to me, even if unintentionally given.

JODI STONE
I like to spin yarns. I spun them in Edinburgh for a few years, then in Liverpool. I returned to Ontario to spin some more and wove a family instead. While writing, editing and publishing provide me with immense satisfaction, my husband and son are my greatest joys.

CATHY STONEHOUSE
I grew up in the UK and emigrated to Canada in 1988, receiving my MFA in Creative Writing from UBC in 1990. I’ve published poetry, fiction and non-fiction in a wide range of Canadian magazines and anthologies, edited the literary journal
Event
for three years, and currently spend my time chasing after my not-quite-toddling daughter and making notes for future writing projects on the backs of envelopes.
This essay pushed its way out of me during the first raw months after my (living) daughter’s birth. Writing it has felt like a partial completion of the unfinished journey that was Gracie’s life.

J. C. SZASZ
As a child I hated reading, but the
Bobbsey Twins
series inspired me to write my own stories. In 2006 Napoleon Publishing/RendezVous Crime will publish my short mystery “Egyptian Queen” in their
Dead in the Water
anthology. My novel,
The Change Agent
, is currently seeking a publisher while I write its sequel. My family and I enjoy skiing and kayaking on Vancouver Island. I am honoured to write about the humble heroes of the Nanaimo Crown Counsel office.

ARITHA VAN HERK
I’ve been asked if I am a writer who teaches or a teacher who writes, but I consider this a false division. I teach and write, sometimes simultaneously, sometimes in a wonderfully challenging juggling act of words and ideas. I have been teaching Creative Writing and Canadian Literature at the University of Calgary for twenty-two years, and what is best is being able to make my living reading books and being able to hide in the biggest library in the city.

JANICE WILLIAMSON
This essay, part of a book-length manuscript, “Hexagrams for My Chinese Daughter,” is dedicated to my daughter, Bao, and my mother—and to Cecile Mactaggart, a generous mentor who knows the transformations of mothering, writing, travel and Chinese dragons. I’ve written, taught and rabble-roused at the University of Alberta since 1987. My splendid daughter (now eight) and I garden beautifully at latitude 53.

An anthology
is a satisfying collaborative effort in every way, and I offer warm appreciation for the following contributions:

• Ann-Marie MacDonald for gracing the book with her writing talents and creative insights in the Introduction;
  

• All the women writers who had the courage and creativity to offer intimate glimpses of their lives in the form of proposals and essays. I am honoured to have been given the opportunity to read them all;
  

• Lorna Crozier, whose magic with words in the poem “To See Clearly” provided just the right image for our title;
  

• All those at Random House, especially Tanya, Marion and Anne, whose warmth and professional expertise have enhanced this anthology experience greatly;
  

• The memory of the wisdom and guiding light of my friend Carol;
  

• My brothers Jim and Fred, whose word wisdom I rely on, my sisters Sylvia and Louise whose enthusiasm for these anthologies has always
  been there, and my new sister-in-law Grace who has joined the web of family writing-support services; and
  

• My husband, Gary, our four daughters and their families and all my wonderful women friends who stand beside me loyally during my project passions.