I'm not a dead white guy.
I´m not a dead white guy. I´m a living old white female writer, a prolific unknown, have been for years. I love plays best but I have a large collection of OOP books, mostly first editions, with one or two exceptions, the major one being Beginnings: A Book for Widows which went to four editions, in print for 27 years. Thus I became Canada’s professional widow for which I was granted a D.Litt. by my home university (Manitoba, which stores my archives, saving me from being a Hoarder) and made a humble member of the Order of Canada. No one has ever asked me for a bow tie or a hank of hair to auction off for a fund-raiser; I’ve never served on a cultural arts board nor been a judge of other artists’ work [Correction: I have twice been a judge for the Ryerson Uhiveristy playwriting course for older writers. Appropriate, isn't it?) I can go to movies without being mobbed by adoring fans, though for years I had this quiet cult, a huge underground following of absolutely powerless women who lent each other my book (the one for widows). I’m not complaining. I count my blessings, hoping, as we all do, to persuade the government to allow us more.
Betty Jane Wylie, B.A. Dbl. Hons., M.A., D.Litt. C.M.
PUBLICATIONS
NON-FICTION
Letters to Icelanders: Exploring the Northern Soul
Enough: Lifestyle and Financial Planning for Simpler Living
Family: An Exploration
Beginnings: A Book for Widows (20th anniversary edition)
The Best Is Yet to Come (with Christopher Cottier)
Life’s Losses (reprint of New Beginnings)
Everywoman’s Money book (with Lynne Macfarlane)
New Beginnings: Living Through Loss and Grief
All in the Family: A Survival Guide for Living and Loving in a Changing World
Successfully Single
COOKBOOKS
Solo Chef: Recipes, Tips, Advice and Encourage for Single Cooks
The Betty Jane Wylie Cheese Cookbook
Encore: The Leftovers Cookbook
POETRY
The Better Half: Women’s Voices
Something Might Happen
The Second Shepherds’ Play (one version)
BELLES LETTRES
Reading Between the Lines: The Diaries of Women
Men! A Collection of Quotations About Men by Women
BIOGRAPHY
The Book of Matthew
The Horsburgh Scandal (play as well)
INSPIRATIONAL
Betty Jane’s Diary: Lessons Children Taught Me
Betty Jane’s Diary: Passages
Betty Jane’s Diary: Holidays and Celebrations
No Two Alike
CHILDREN’S BOOKS
John of a Thousand Faces
Tecumseh
PLAYS
Veranda
Time Bomb
Double Vision
The Horsburgh Scandal (with Theatre Passe Muraille)
Mark
Jason
Androgyne
Angel
Speculum
Grace Under Pressure
The Second Shepherds’ Play (2 translations, 1 adaptation; see Musicals)
Steps
How to Speak Male
Help Is on the Way (six-part series)
A Day In the Life (two short plays, one theme)
A Place on Earth (one-hander)
Double Swap (with Michael Cole)
Size Ten
I See You
An Enemy of the People (adaptation, set in Saskatchewan)
PLAYS FOR CHILDREN
Don’t Just Stand There - Jiggle! (a collection of 5 puppet plays)
Kingsayer
The Old Woman and the Pedlar
RADIO PLAYS
Memories of Canada
How to Speak Male
Sybil: A Novel for Radio
Mountain Woman
Victorian Spice (Award Winner)\
Betty Jane’s Diary (a daily personal column, written and performed; syndicated by Berkeley Studio, Toronto, broadcast by independent radio stations in Canada)
MUSICALS/OPERA
Beowulf (music by Victor Davies)
Soap Bubbles (music by Victor Davies
The Second Shepherds’ Play (church version, music by Quenten Doolittle)
Boy in a Cage (chamber opera, music by Ken Nichols)
4 five-minute operas for Tapestry New Opera Works (produced for a Lib-Lab)
Gotcha (15-minute opera for Tapestry New Opera Works)
RECORDINGS
Beowulf (three-record album, Golden Toad Label)
Beowulf (two-record album, Daffodil Label), and a CD
TELEVISION AND FILM
Women, Lifestyle, and Money 13-part series- writer/narrator host)
Coming of Age (MOW-movie of the week, with Donald Martin)
CrossTalk (12-part series for VISION TV- writer, facilitator, host)
Shadow Lake (MOW, story credit) became Paradise Falls (2 episodes in first year)
JOURNALISM
Published in Canadian magazines and newspapers including MacLean’s, Chatelaine, Homemakers, Toronto Life, Miss Chatelaine (now Flare), Calgary Magazine, Canadian Living, Performing Arts, Canadian Theatre Review, Recipes Only, Fiddlehead, Forum, Fifty Plus, Gourmet (USA), Today, The Canadian, The Icelandic Canadian, Prairie Fire, Quest, City Woman, City Magazine, Ontario Living, Leisureways, the Globe and Mail, the Toronto Star, the Winnipeg Free Press, the Boston Globe
SPECIAL NEWSPAPER ASSIGNMENTS
“The Old Lady Caper” and “The Psycho Trip” (2 5-part series of investigative journalism)
“Summer Soap (three-month daily summer serial)
BOOKS ABOUT HER WORK
Female Parts: The Art and Politics of Female Playwrights, by Yvonne Hodkinson
The Canadian Dramatist, volume Two, by Diane Bessai
ANTHOLOGIES WHERE HER WORK HAS APPEARED
Dropped Threads: What We Aren’t Told (“The Imaginary Woman”)
Inter S E C T I O N S: Fiction and Poetry from the Banff Centre for the Arts (“Mirror Image”, excerpt from an unpublished novel)
Going Some Place (“A Guest of Karen Blixen”)
Six Fantasy Plays for Children (“The Old Woman and the Pedlar”)
Unexpected Fictions (“Memories of Chocolate Sauce”)
Recipes Only
First Class Acts (“The Discovery Trunk”)
The Perfect Piece (“Anna”)
Another Perfect Piece (“Jason”)
AND DESCRIBED, REFERRED TO IN Pierre Berton’s book about writing, and in a collection of essays by Jane Rule