Marilyn Norry is an award-winning Canadian actor, writer, dramaturg, director and teacher.
Her work on stage playing (among others) Heidi Holland in Wendy Wasserstein’s The Heidi Chronicles and Hagar Shipley in the adaptation of Margaret Laurence’s novel The Stone Angel gave her particular insights into dramatic character arcs that span a lifetime.
A busy film career has run concurrent to her writing stage plays and screenplays, story editing the television series Madison, and working with playwrights at Playwright’s Theatre Center where she also directed many staged readings.
My Mother’s Story
In 2004 she started My Mother’s Story, a multimedia project that asks people around the world to write the facts of their mothers’ lives so women’s history can be saved and shared.
She has worked with over 200 people on their mothers’ stories that follow a simple writing template and many of these stories are posted in the Archive at mymothersstory.org.
In 2010 Marilyn was awarded the Lorena Gale Woman of Distinction Award from the Union of British Columbia Performers, in recognition for the work she has done raising the status of women primarily through My Mother’s Story.
Books by Marilyn Norry
Writing Women’s History
Starting with your mother
This guide 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.
My Mother’s Story
North Vancouver
How have 20th century women really lived? My Mother’s Story asks people to write the story of their mothers’ lives from beginning to end, without embellishment, telling “just the facts ma’am.” The 41 stories collected here were submitted for inclusion in a professional theatre production in Vancouver, Canada.
My Mother’s Story
The Originals
An anthology of memoirs. 39 Vancouver actresses write the story of their mothers’ lives – just the facts, ma’am – from beginning to end. These mothers come from around the world, with birthdates ranging from 1890 to 1954. Gathered together, these stories are a record of 20th century women’s history, sketches of how women really lived.
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