Lögberg-Heimskringla - 15.03.2007, Side 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