About the Book:

My Mother's Story is a worldwide campaign with the mandate to encourage the writing, collecting, and performing of stories written by daughters and sons about their mothers.

In 2004 Marilyn Norry sent a challenge to women actors in Vancouver, Canada: write the facts of your mother's life, just the facts, from beginning to end. My Mother's Story: The Originals is an anthology of memoirs by 39 Vancouver actresses writing the story of their mothers' lives. These mothers come from around the world, with birth dates ranging from 1890 to 1954. Gathered together, these stories are a record of 20th century women's history, sketches of how women really lived. Written with disarming candour, these first hand accounts reveal the microhistory of women living through wars, poverty, prosperity, mental illness, addiction, artistic achievement, adoption, arranged marriage, infidelity, and the everyday trials and joys of women... everywhere.

My Mother's Story: The Originals is the first book of the My Mother's Story series, part of a campaign that asks people around the world to record and share the story of their mothers' lives. The stories collected for the project have inspired and/or fuelled the development of an online Archive (www.mymothersstory.org), writing workshops, books, radio and film documentaries, a form of theatre and an entire social movement telling women's history... one mother at a time.

About the Editor:

Marilyn Norry is an award winning Canadian actor who has honed her craft on stage and screen for over 30 years. From this perspective she is able to see the extraordinary story potential in the lives of ordinary women as well as see how these stories could be told. Those insights started My Mother's Story and since 2004 she has used the stories gained in this project to stage readings, edit and publish books and lead workshops. She lives in Vancouver and continues to find ways to gather and tell women's history... one mother at a time.