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A
Conversation with Marjorie
Anderson
Can you tell us how you came to collaborate with Carol Shields?
Carol and I have been friends for close to twenty years. We met
while we were both teaching in the English Department of the University
of Manitoba. I was teaching 20th century literature and Carol was
teaching creative writing. Since then we have remained close and
have had countless long, fascinating discussions, often over lunch,
about writing, literature, and the emotional state of” the worlds”
— ours and the larger one. The book grew out of a conversation
we had at one of our lengthier lunches at the university.
What inspired
you to begin this project?
At lunch one day in the spring of 1998, I told Carol I felt that
“the woman’s network let me down.” I was experiencing a plummet
in energy not uncommon in menopause — apparently. I declared
that nothing I read and nothing I heard from other woman had prepared
me for the dip I was experiencing. We mused on that topic for a
while and then went on to lively speculations on what other experiences
had caught us by surprise, where else there were gaps in women’s
talk. I can’t remember exactly what other topics we came up with
on that day, but I do remember being “caught” in the discussion
for weeks after. Both Carol and I asked other women friends and
family members about their observations on the topic and all of
them had interesting views and comments. At our subsequent lunches
that spring, Carol and I would muse on the responses from others.
At some point in this swirl of fascinating speculations, we decided
that the topic would make for a great anthology of writings by women.
Are there
any tips you would give a book club to better navigate their discussion
of Dropped Threads?
There are several entry points into the anthology that I can
suggest:
- Discuss what
pieces stood out for each reader and why: In my discussions with
readers, so many report that certain stories stand out for them
because of some resonance to their own lives.
- Consider
why this book has been so popular with Canadian women. What chord
has been struck? What need has been met? What does this collection
indicate about the current state of the “women’s movement”?
- What are
the effects of having a mixture of well-known writers and others
who are being published for the first time? Talk also about the
mixture of personal essays and fiction. (We gave all the contributors
the choice of either form.) Why did only a few choose fiction
and why the pseudonyms for two of the pieces?
- What topics
weren’t covered in this anthology that would make for great pieces
in a Volume 2? Also, speculate on what each person would
have written about if she had been asked to be a contributor for
the anthology.
Do you have
a favourite story to tell about being interviewed for your book?
Have the interviews been very different from the media you receive
for your fiction?
One humourous memory is of my staring intently at and talking
to the microphone instead of to the interviewer at one early morning
radio show. Generally, all the interviewers were enthusiastic about
the book and easy to talk to. Most often the articles that resulted
from the conversation I had with media people were accurate and
kind and the TV “ spots” were well edited. One TV program with an
especially fine job of editing and compiling was Imprint on TV Ontario.
The crew from this program filmed the Toronto launch and interviewed
me and the five contributors who were in attendance.
One of my favourite
stories has to do with Carol being interviewed about the book. She
and her daughter Anne were on a Vancouver CBC TV show that is shown
nationally and Carol was asked — as we both have been so many
times — what led to the topic of the anthology. She mentioned
my dip in energy and, apparently, indicated that I reported that
the biggest drop was in libido. Well, my cousin Kurt was sitting
in his living room in rural Manitoba watching the show, and he nearly
fell over with surprise and mirth to hear about his cousin’s sex
drive on national TV. (I’ll have you all know that the “dip” was
temporary!)
What question
are you never asked in interviews but wish you were?
No one has asked me if I wrote one of the pieces, and I did.
Can you guess which one?
Has a review
or profile ever changed your perspective on your work?
I consider all reviews — both the mixed ones and the glowing
ones — as opinions of readers, valid opinions because all are
based on individual experiences of the book. Sometimes a comment
by a critic will provide us with much amusement; for example, one
reviewer bemoaned the fact that a bevy of the contributors were
“married women from Winnipeg.” We, who are married women in Winnipeg,
weren’t sure how to interpret that comment. Should we be single
or should we be from somewhere else? The “reviews” that have given
me new perspectives on the anthology have come in the form of comments
from readers. At one event where I was talking about the book and
reading from it, one woman said to me, “This is the kind of book
that once you’ve read, you are changed forever.” I was amazed and
asked her what the book had, specifically, provided for her. She
replied, “Affirmation. I don’t feel so lonely — or crazy —
now. Others feel and think as I do.” I had not anticipated that
the book would have that profound an impact on women’s lives.
Which authors
have been most influential to your own writing?
Doris Lessing, Margaret Drabble, Anne Tyler, Sue Miller, Alice
Munroe, Jack Hogins, and Carol Shields
What are
some of your other passions in life?
My lake cottage, watching moonlight on water; my family; babies
— mine and other people’s; dancing (I am a clogger); music;
teaching; having elegant dinner parties; traveling; being alive!
If you could
have written one book in history, what book would that be?
Either Miss Marjoribanks by Margaret Oliphant or Saint
Maybe by Anne Tyler.
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