Tuesday, 15 November 2016

Miss Confederation: The Diary of Mercy Anne Coles

I'm thrilled to announce that Miss Confederation: The Diary of Mercy Anne Coles will be published with Dundurn Press this summer 2017 in time for Canada's 150th anniversary!
Mercy Coles was the unmarried twenty-six year old daughter of George Coles, a Father of Confederation from Prince Edward Island. She went with her father to Quebec City for the talks to debate and layout the resolutions of the British North America Act which make up the constitution which still governs Canada today. While in Quebec and during the following tour of the Canadas, and northern US Mercy Coles kept a diary of the men and whirlwind of social events as they affected her and her desires.

Transcribed from the original document, the diary has never been published before. It offers a unique view of the men and events that made Canada. The fact that the diary has been known about for years, and yet it has never been published, speaks volumes about what, and who, we view as important in history.

 Miss Confederation at Dundurn Press 
(You can pre-order on Amazon at
Amidst the grand and heady spectacle of the balls, banquets, and events of the Confederation Conferences of October 1864, Mercy Coles is seeking adventure and love. She isn’t concerned with writing for posterity, or with propriety. Miss Confederation gives us history as it’s being made, without the veneer and gloss time creates.

I'll post updates on Launches and Tours as they're settled. If you'd like me to present a talk and slideshow on Mercy Coles and Confederation, please contact me. 

Tuesday, 10 May 2016

Lullabies and Cautions at Spring Fest of New Plays

My play, Lullabies and Cautions, was chosen by Nina Lee Aquino, Artistic Director of the Factory Theatre in Toronto as one of the three featured plays for 2016 Saskatchewan Playwright Centre's Spring Festival!
     It will receive a full staged reading this Friday May 13 -- but first there are 3 days of work shopping with the cast of 10, and Director Daryl Cloran, starting tomorrow -- I'm looking forward to 3 intense and fun days.
Here's a bit about the play and the festival
Spring Festival 2016
All events are free/ donation and are at Neutral Ground Gallery, 1856 Scarth St in Regina 
May 13 Doors open at 7:30; Reading 8 to 9:30 pm, followed by a talk back then some eats and a cash bar: Lullabies and Cautions by Anne McDonald (staged reading of the full play)
 In Lullabies and Cautions, the character of ME, her family, and her history interconnect with John A. Macdonald, the Fathers of Confederation, and Mercy Coles, the daughter of the Prince Edward Island delegate during the 1864 Confederation conferences, Expo ’67, and 1974 during the Inquest into ME’s father’s death. Love, loss, and the responsibilities we have to each other on both a personal and public or political level are the themes explored in this play. Throughout there is song, music, adapted lullabies and nursery rhymes, dance and poetry with lots of chorus work making the whole a playful experience of a serious subject.

Information on all of Spring Festival, which runs from May 9 to May 14 can be found here

July 1st, Expo 67
Can you hear Bobby Gimby's Ca Na Da song playing?   http://youtu.be/4vE17TazIvM