Marjorie Anderson – författare

The idea for Dropped Threads: What We Aren''t Told came up between Carol Shields and longtime friend Marjorie Anderson over lunch. It appeared that after decades of feminism, the “women''s network” still wasn''t able to prevent women being caught off-guard by life. There remained subjects women just didn''t talk about, or felt they couldn''t talk about. Holes existed in the fabric of women''s discourse, and they needed examining.They asked thirty-four women to write about moments in life that had taken them by surprise or experiences that received too little discussion, and then they compiled these pieces into a book. It became an instant number one bestseller, a book clubs'' favourite and a runaway success. Dropped Threads, says Anderson, "tapped into a powerful need to share personal stories about life''s defining moments of surprise and silence." Readers recognized themselves in these honest and intimate stories; there was something universal in these deeply personal accounts. Other stories and suggestions poured in. Dropped Threads would clearly be an ongoing project.Like the first volume, Dropped Threads 2 features stories by well-known novelists and journalists such as Jane Urquhart, Susan Swan and Shelagh Rogers, but also many excellent new writers including teachers, mothers, a civil servant, a therapist. This triumphant follow-up received a starred first review in Quill and Quire magazine, which called it “compassionate and unflinching.” The book deals with such difficult topics as loss, depression, disease, widowhood, violence, and coming to terms with death. Several stories address some of the darker sides of motherhood:- A mother describes how, while sleep-deprived and in a miserable marriage, she is shocked to find infanticide crossing her mind.- Another woman recounts a memory of her alcoholic mother demanding the children prove their loyalty in a terrifying way.- A woman desperate for children refers to the bleak truth as: "Another Christmas of feeling barren." Narrating the fertility treatment she undergoes, the hopes dashed, she is amusing in retrospect and yet brutally honest.While they deal with loss and trauma, the pieces show the path to some kind of acceptance, showing the authors’ determination to learn from pain and pass on the wisdom gained. The volume also covers the rewards of learning to be a parent, choosing to remain single, or fitting in as a lesbian parent. It explores how women feel when something is missing in a friendship, how they experience discrimination, relationship challenges, and other emotions less easily defined but just as close to the bone:- Alison Wearing in “My Life as a Shadow” subtly describes allowing her personality to be subsumed by her boyfriend''s.- Pamela Mala Sinha tells how, after suffering a brutal attack, she felt self-hatred and a longing for retribution.- Dana McNairn talks of her uncomfortable marriage to a man from a different social background: "I wanted to fit in with this strange, wondrous family who never raised their voices, never swore and never threw things at one another."Humour, a confiding tone, and beautiful writing elevate and enliven even the darkest stories. Details bring scenes vividly to life, so we feel we are in the room with Barbara Defago when the doctor tells her she has breast cancer, coolly dividing her life into a ''before and after.'' Lucid, reflective and poignant, Dropped Threads 2 is for anyone interested in women''s true stories.

In the tradition of the bestselling Dropped Threads and Dropped Threads 2 comes this new collection of essays from well-known writers and new voices. Ever since the publication of the first two Dropped Threads books, readers and writers have longed for another installment — and here it is. For this collection, editor Marjorie Anderson took a new thematic path, searching out pieces that don’t necessarily focus on what women haven’t been told, but rather on what they have to tell. In Dropped Threads 3: Beyond the Small Circle, thirty-five women open up their own small circles of experience to others in ways that not only illuminate the lives of individual women but add more threads to the already-rich tapestry of our collective conversation.These essays focus on personal discoveries that, for various reasons, need to be shared: the writers tell us about family secrets, sexuality, rebellion, crevices of deep joy or regret; about finding connections to nature, to animals, to a “tribe” to which one can belong; about embracing forgiveness, kindness, and new perspectives beyond the circle of individual sight. Barbara McLean tells us of the sister she never knew, and how recovering her story shed light on how grief can take so many different forms. June Callwood explores the continuity that flows between mothers and daughters, and the mysterious, chance happenings that form character. Frances Itani writes about how the voices of the women in her family – her aunts and grandmother relaying stories around the kitchen table – are as integral to her life as her own genetic code. Melanie Janzen sees connections between a Ugandan women’s collective and the neighbourhood women of her childhood, but has trouble finding a similar community of support in her own life today. And in all of the pieces, there is a powerful sense that the understanding that comes from writing and reading can enrich our lives beyond measure.As Marjorie Anderson writes in her foreword, we trust first-person narratives precisely because they give us an inside view into someone else’s world; here, as in the best of our personal conversations, there are “no assertions of absolute truth, no earth-shaking revelations or attempts to manipulate another’s belief, just individual voices making individual claims on the discovery of meaning.” With Dropped Threads 3: Beyond the Small Circle, Anderson has created a forum in which Canadian women can share their personal discoveries with honesty, insight and humour.Marjorie Anderson (foreword)Margaret AtwoodJune CallwoodTracey Ann CoveartLorna CrozierAndrea CurtisNorma DePledgeMaggie de VriesM.A.C. FarrantLiane FaulderNatalie FingerhutLorri Neilsen GlennMarie-Lynn HammondHarriet HartFrances ItaniMelanie D. JanzenGillian KerrChantal KreviazukSilken LaumannJodi LundgrenAnn-Marie MacDonald (introduction)C.B. MackintoshHeather MallickBarbara McLeanBarbara MitchellBernice MorganPatricia PearsonBeth PowningJudy RebickSusan RileyLauri SarkadiBarbara ScottJodi StoneCathy StonehouseJ. C. SzaszAritha van HerkJanice WilliamsonFrom the Trade Paperback edition.