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