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. 

Writing Women's History: Starting with Your Mother is the workbook for My Mother's Story, outlining the challenge, exercises and encouragement needed to make sure women's history is saved by following a writing recipe: the facts of your mother's life from beginning to end, in less than 2000 words, where you're just a footnote. 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. If you wish you can post your mother's story there as well.

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. It was the start of My Mother's Story, now a worldwide campaign to empower both women and men to see their mothers as women in their times – accomplishing goals, witnessing history, surviving as well as they could. These are the extraordinary stories of ordinary women that tell the truth of how women of the 20th century truly lived. Writing about your mother in this way contributes to a collective history where women are seen as well as heard.

Writing Women's History: Starting with Your Mother takes you through the process of writing the story of your mother's life, answering questions and posing more. It's a workbook, a writing exercise, a history lesson, a meditation journal, a project, a challenge, a manifesto, a call to action, an archive. It's the start of many meaningful conversations; an empathy builder, a community healer, a voice builder, a shame shatterer. By reflecting on family history and answering questions, your writing will shed light on the past but also expose and perhaps dissolve some of the assumptions you hold about your mother, your writing, and what you believe is your place in the world. It will prepare you for conversations on what roles and rules will benefit the human race in the future.

About the Author:

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.