On Saturday, November 30, we celebrated L.M. Montgomery’s 150th Birthday in style. We hosted a tea with special guests; Hope Dalvay, Susan White, and Mere Joyce, three of Canada’s 10 young adult fiction authors whose stories were chosen for “The ANNEthology” released in June. We served Anne of Green Gables inspired Raspberry Cordial Herbal Tea by NovelTea and Anne’s Devine Delights Milk & Dark chocolates imported from the Island.
The ANNEthology: A Collection of Kindred Spirits Inspired by the Canadian Icon: is written by ten of Canada’s top young adult fiction writers as they set Canada’s favourite red-haired orphan, Anne Shirley, on brand new adventures. With its futuristic settings, cybernetic beings, ghosts, mysterious books and boxes, and racial and sexual diversity in its cast of characters, The ANNEthology offers serious “scope for the imagination” for all readers.
The three authors who live in the Maritimes made the trek to Dartmouth Book Exchange for our birthday bash. Each Author was asked to write about “Their Anne”. From Cape Breton, Hope Dalvay wrote the short story “In Search of Kindred Spirits” set in the scarcest of places… in Junior High. Susan White from New Brunswick wrote “Matthew Insists on Ripped Jeans”. Mere Joyce from Antigonish asks; What if Green Gables was haunted and wrote, “Where the Dark Goes”. Click below to hear from all the authors in the ANNEthology.
Storyteller Cindy Campbell-Stone started our evening by giving us a short bio on L.M. Montgomery. Born November 30th, 1874, Lucy Maud Montgomery, published as L.M. Montgomery was a Canadian author best known for her collection of novels, essays, short stories, and poetry, beginning in 1908 with Anne of Green Gables. She published 20 novels, 530 short stories, 500 poems, and 30 essays. Cindy explained that Maud was NOT a suffragette but encouraged women with her writing. She firmly believed that women should be given opportunities to get a higher education. In 1896, L.M. Montgomery wrote an essay, “A Girl’s Place at Dalhousie College,” which was published in the Halifax Herald. Cindy ended by reciting L.M. Montgomery’s Poem, “Winter Wind.”
Louise Michalos author of Marilla Before Anne joined us for our Birthday Bash and read what she wrote on the online Maud 150 Tribute by writers inspired by Montgomery by the Journal of L.M. Montgomery Studies. This is what she wrote:
Louise Michalos on Marilla choosing who to tell her story
I have to admit, my scholastic knowledge of Lucy Maud Montgomery is very limited. And I didn’t grow up reading the Anne novels. My first introduction to her characters was at the Confederation Centre in PEI, watching the stage production of Anne of Green Gables. By that time, I was twenty-five years old, married, and had two little boys. The characters I most related to, and felt as if I knew, were Marilla and Matthew Cuthbert and their discovery of what it felt like to be loved by a little girl.
In 2018 I was looking for a well-known East Coast character and a well-known Canadian character to be in my first novel. And the first person I thought of was Marilla. So I chose her or at least I thought I did. The book The Artist’s Way by Julia Cameron talks about the character choosing the author. And that is really what happened. It was as if Marilla stood behind me and said “You need to tell my story.”
And so I did. And in the process, fell in love with Marilla and Matthew Cuthbert all over again. The creation of these two characters by Montgomery in 1908 was their introduction to the world. Since then they have not only endured, they’ve adapted and changed as needed, for the readers and movie watchers, and TV Series fans around the world, who still need them.
