Dropped Threads 2: More of What We Aren't Told - Brossura

Praise for Dropped Threads:

“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

Carol Shields used to rummage in antique shops for photographs of long-forgotten women. She is "fascinated by the lives of the overlooked," says the Calgary Herald, and her novels reveal a passion for the simple pleasures of everyday working lives. She says, "I like attention paid to the details that sustain us."

She was born in a suburb of Chicago in 1935, third child of a candy factory manager and a teacher, and had a happy childhood. She met her Canadian husband on a college exchange program in England. After having five children and being what she calls a "typical" 1950s housewife, she "took a master's degree, got involved in left-wing politics, learned French and gradually woke up." As she turned 40, her graduate thesis was accepted for publicat