Lögberg-Heimskringla - 15.03.2007, Blaðsíða 2

Lögberg-Heimskringla - 15.03.2007, Blaðsíða 2
2 • Lögberg-Heimskringla • 15 March 2007 Visit us on the web at http://www.lh-inc.ca Many people wait too long to begin writing their memoirs — but fortunately that wasn’t the case for the late Asdis Sigrun An- derson, who passed away last December. Over a six-year period, Ka- trina Anderson interviewed her grandmother Asdis and recorded her stories, rewriting them into a unifi ed narrative. (Part of the account was serial- ized in Lögberg-Heimskringla as “Íslensk kona.”) Marjorie Anderson edited the work. “I can say, without a doubt, that Katrina captured my mother’s voice,” she says. The result was the book Blessed: Portrait of Asdis Sigrun Anderson, which was printed for Asdis’s extended family in 2005 and launched at a party in her honour. Blessed tells the story of Asdis’s youth growing up near Lake Winnipeg. Her father fi shed on the lake and also farmed. It recounts her mar- riage to Stoney Anderson, a subsistence farmer who loved his family but was at times dif- fi cult to live with. Together As- dis and Stoney had eight chil- dren. Asdis committed herself to her children and felt blessed by her family life. After the children had grown up and moved out, Stoney experienced deep de- pression and, tragically, took his own life. However, Asdis’s perspec- tive in her memoirs is never tinged with resent- ment or bitter- ness. Marjorie recalls, “She said ‘if we don’t accept death, we don’t accept life.’ ... It never af- fected the fact that she felt she was one of the luckiest wom- en in the world to be married to him.” Asdis and Stoney felt very strongly that their children should have the opportunities for education that they them- selves did not have. Stoney, says Marjorie, told his chil- dren “over and over agin that ‘education is the road out.’ Our mother is the one who enabled us, because if we had home- work, she would take on jobs that we should have been do- ing; because homework and books came fi rst.” Fittingly, succeeding gen- erations in the Anderson clan have excelled in the fi elds of teaching, business, art, photog- raphy, writing, editing, nursing, marketing and other areas. Following the launch of the fi rst edition of Blessed, oth- ers began asking where they could buy the book. “We were heartened by the fact that our mother’s story had this kind of relevance beyond our family, beyond the Icelandic commu- nity,” says Marjorie. “People found in it a resonance of some of their heritage. So many peo- ple come from i m m i g r a n t families. We knew that we wanted it pub- lished.” After con- sidering dif- ferent options, they elected not to send it to an outside publisher and instead formed their own company, An- derson House P u b l i s h i n g . The venture is a partnership between some of the Anderson siblings; Mar- jorie and her husband are the majority. The siblings who who are not partners still con- tribute. The next generation is also getting involved, includ- ing photography by Asdis’s grandson Craig Koshyk. Aiming at a wider audience meant making some changes for the second edition. “We didn’t make a lot of substantive changes. We didn’t change anything about my mom’s voice,” says Marjorie. “There were some spots where we added more information; this was in response to feed- back that we got from people, both within the family and without.” The new edition of Blessed also features a family tree, a new afterword by the editor, and brief biographies of Asdis and Stoney’s children, Bryce, Gary, Louise, Sylvia, Jim, Dennis, Marjorie and Fred. Also included is the full text of Fred Anderson’s poem “Last Shot.” Marjorie co-edited with Carol Shields the fi rst two Dropped Threads anthologies of women’s writing, and edited the third volume by herself. She has also worked for years as a freelance editor. “A large number of manu- scripts that I get are memoirs. And some of them have a kind of ‘heart’ that my mother’s book has. It’s a story of integri- ty, goodness, dedication — they are stories that inspire, they are stories that put role models for how to be in the world, how to life a good life. And I thought, ‘You know, this is a niche that needs to be fi lled.’ “Large publishers now, of- ten they are looking for a sec- ond Da Vinci Code, or Harry Potter, and some of these grassroots, ‘heart’ stories are slipping through the cracks. So this is the kind of book I would like to publish. And our hopes, and our plans, are that what we learn from doing our mother’s book, we will apply to other books.” Part of their marketing plan is to network with community groups across North America; the intention is to talk to people face-to-face about Blessed. Once the promotional work for the book is complete, the publishing company will con- sider future titles. They will likely publish between two and three books a year, Marjo- rie says. “We’re looking at a par- ticular kind of memoir,” she adds. The life stories they seek are ones of “substance — a life that is often not played out in the public arena. Attention should be paid to these lives — lives of integrity and good- ness.” There is a need for these kinds of books in today’s im- age-centric culture, she feels. We are bombarded with photos of celebrities we know nothing about. “I see image and I don’t know the substance. These sto- ries give you substance. And I think we are hungry for that. To get inside a life and see how that person lived, and to come to know the life, and the per- son... to be inspired by some- thing about their spirit. Those stories have a kind of power to them.” Blessed: Portrait of Asdis Sigrun Anderson, from Ander- son House Publishing, will be launched in May. For more in- formation visit www.marjorie- anderson.ca. ������������ looking to buy old Icelandic art and antiques. paintings, books, sculptures, drawings, etc. ��������������� ��������� ������������ ������������������ �������� ������ ��������� ���� ��������������������� �� ��������������������������������� ��������� ��������������������������������� ������������������� ���� ����������������� ������������ ���������������������������������� ����������������� ��������������������������� ����������������������������� ���������������������������� ����������������������������������������������������������������� ������������ �������� ���������� ���������������� ���������������� ��� ���������������� ���������� �������������� ������ ��������������������������� �������������������� ���������� ��� ����� ��� ���� ����� ���� ���� ��� ����� ������� ��������������������������� ������� �������������������������������� �������������������������������� ������������� ������������������� ����������������� ������������������ ����������������������������������� ���������������� ������� ������������ ��������������������� �� ���� PHOTO: CRAIG KOSHYK Marjorie Anderson has been a freelance editor for many years. Lives of substance Family forms publishing company to focus on personal stories 642-5504 Ernest Stefanson Garry Fedorchuk Claire Gillis Pat Sedun PHARMACISTS Live well with PHARMASAVE Lighthouse Mall Gimli PHARMASAVE

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