Dropped Threads: What We Aren't Told - Softcover

" There are exciting and truly intimate entries in this book... these women take ideas even secret ones, and infuse them with poetry, scoured and buffed sentences and ... stopwatch comic timing... The true depth of the collection is found in these women's clear memories and their willingness to share." -- "Quill & Quire
"" It's a collection of revealing essays and short stories by 35 Canadian women at mid-life and beyond, reflecting on the life events that caught them off guard and, somehow, haven't been talked about... As it turns out, there are many dropped threads in our lives. Weave them together and you've got a tapestry." -- Bonnie Schiedel, "Chatelaine," April 2001
" Dropped Threads ... is a collection of 34 pieces by Canadian women in which they describe... everything they never said or were not able to say before, but which had tremendous power in their lives... [Senator Sharon Carstairs' s] essay about women in politics [is] clear-eyed and devastating ... Miriam Toews examines her father's lifelong battle with depression, which culminated in his suicide ... with gentleness and insight ... These are all the conversations we would wish to have with friends and these essays stimulate the sense of exuberance and relief that one always feels after a long, self-revelatory talk." -- Virginia Beaton, "Halifax Chronicle-Herald," 25 Feb 2001
" Dropped Threads is a much-awaited anthology of essays and stories by Canadian women, including celebrated writers as well as women who are neither writers nor famous ... The angst of the women in DroppedThreads covers a wide spectrum." -- Paul Gessell, "Ottawa Citizen," 20 Jan 2001
" if the value of books were measured by the insights stored within their pages, Dropped Threads" "would be priceless... [This] is a wonderfully well-written and excellently edited book that offers such intimate insights that it sometimes seems like a stream of consciousness. The compositions frequently make the reader feel like an eavesdropper -- and an extremely entertained one at that... The stories in "Dropped Threads "cathartically tie up loose ends for their writers, while providing readers with an exquisitely crafted patchwork quilt of life experiences." -- "Winnipeg Free Press
"On Lily Redmond's "Mrs. Jones," writing about abortion:
" One of the most powerful essays... . So many of us can talk with ease about the theory - our unwavering support for a woman's right to choose - but no woman ever wants to make that tragic choice or even admit to having once made it." -- Pamela Wallin," @globebooks.com"
On Joan Barfoot's "Starch, Salt, Wine, Chocolate":
" Barfoot is always interesting and her take on female friendship is clever and well observed. Loyalty, Barfoot feels, is the most important gift of friendship, although spinoffs abound." -- Nancy Schiefer, "The" "London Free Press"

"There are exciting and truly intimate entries in this book...these women take ideas even secret ones, and infuse them with poetry, scoured and buffed sentences and ...stopwatch comic timing...The true depth of the collection is found in these women's clear memories and their willingness to share." -- "Quill & Quire
""It's a collection of revealing essays and short stories by 35 Canadian women at mid-life and beyond, reflecting on the life events that caught them off guard and, somehow, haven't been talked about...As it turns out, there are many dropped threads in our lives. Weave them together and you've got a tapestry." -- Bonnie Schiedel, "Chatelaine," April 2001
"Dropped Threads ... is a collection of 34 pieces by Canadian women in which they describe...everything they never said or were not able to say before, but which had tremendous power in their lives...[Senator Sharon Carstairs's] essay about women in politics [is] clear-eyed and devastating ...Miriam Toews examines her father's lifelong battle with depression, which culminated in his suicide ... with gentleness and insight ... These are all the conversations we would wish to have with friends and these essays stimulate the sense of exuberance and relief that one always feels after a long, self-revelatory talk." -- Virginia Beaton, "Halifax Chronicle-Herald," 25 Feb 2001
"Dropped Threads is a much-awaited anthology of essays and stories by Canadian women, including celebrated writers as well as women who are neither writers nor famous ... The angst of the women in Dropped Threads covers a wide spectrum." -- Paul Gessell, "Ottawa Citizen," 20 Jan 2001
"if the value of books were measured by the insights stored within their pages, Dropped Threads""would be priceless...[This] is a wonderfully well-written and excellently edited book that offers such intimate insights that it sometimes seems like a stream of consciousness. The compositions frequently make the reader feel like an eavesdropper -- and an extremely entertained one at that...The stories in "Dropped Threads "cathartically tie up loose ends for their writers, while providing readers with an exquisitely crafted patchwork quilt of life experiences." -- "Winnipeg Free Press
"On Lily Redmond's "Mrs. Jones," writing about abortion:
"One of the most powerful essays... . So many of us can talk with ease about the theory - our unwavering support for a woman's right to choose - but no woman ever wants to make that tragic choice or even admit to having once made it." -- Pamela Wallin," @globebooks.com"
On Joan Barfoot's "Starch, Salt, Wine, Chocolate"
"Barfoot is always interesting and her take on female friendship is clever and well observed. Loyalty, Barfoot feels, is the most important gift of friendship, although spinoffs abound." -- Nancy Schiefer, "The""London Free Press"

The idea came up over lunch between two old friends. There was a need for a book that, eschewing sensationalism and simplistic answers, would examine the holes in the fabric of women’s talk of the last thirty or forty years. The contributors, a cross-section of women, would be asked to explore defining moments in their lives rarely aired in common discourse: truths they had never shared, subjects they hadn’t written about before or otherwise found a place for. What Carol Shields and Marjorie Anderson wanted to hear about were the experiences that had brought unexpected pleasure or disappointment, that somehow had caught each woman unawares. The pieces, woven together, would be a tapestry of stories about what women experience but don’t talk about. The resulting book became an instant #1 bestseller.

“Our feeling was that women are so busy protecting themselves and other people that they still feel they have to keep quiet about some subjects,” Carol Shields explained in an interview. Dropped Threads takes as its model the kind of informal discussions women have every day – over coffee, over lunch, over work, over the Internet – and pushes them further, sometimes even into painful territory. Subjects include work, menopause, childbirth, a husband’s terminal illness, the loss of a child, getting old, the substance of women’s friendships, the power of sexual feelings, the power of power, and that nagging question, “How do I look?” Some of the experiences are instantly recognizable; others are bound to provoke debate or inspire readers to examine their own lives more closely.

The book is a collection of short, engaging pieces by more than thirty women, from Newfoundland to Vancouver Island. Many are mothers, some are grandmothers, and many are professionals, including journalists, professors, lawyers, musicians, a corporate events planner and a senator. Readers will find the personal revelations of some of their favourite authors here, such as Margaret Atwood, Bonnie Burnard, Sharon Butala, Joan Barfoot, Joan Clark and Katherine Govier. Other contributors include:

· Eleanor Wachtel, CBC radio host, talks about her early fears of speaking in public.
· June Callwood, journalist, social activist and a Companion of the Order of Canada, at the age of seventy-six is surprised at her failure to find answers to the imponderable dilemmas surrounding human life, and of her lack of connection to the “apparition” in the mirror.
· Isabel Huggan, short story writer, muses on what she considers the impossibility of mothers passing on knowledge to their daughters, and on her own feeling that “we are girls dressed up in ladies’ clothing, pretending.”

With writing that is reflective, often amusing, poignant, emotional and profound, Dropped Threads is the first book to tackle the lesser-discussed issues of middle age and is the first anthology the editors have compiled together.