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MeadowLane Working with author
Donna Mann on creating a website for children’s
stories was an opportunity to bring my 25 years
of teaching experience to a new role as Narrator.
With Donna Mann at Meadowlane’s website launch
in November, 2009.
Artist Anna Gruda’s water colour painting
captures the vision of
“A Promise” - one of Donna’s imaginative
children’s stories
Photo by Eric Lundsted |
Recording stories at
Little Box Studios in Durham, Ontario
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My story of how
MeadowLane Audio Stories was birthed is a
little different from Donna's. While exploring
the publishing world, I consulted Donna who had
offered to share her wealth of knowledge in this
field. We spoke about many details, like being
careful about copyright issues and respecting
artists when an author uses clipart or
photographs to enhance a piece of writing. Donna
showed me some of her self-published material
and other work waiting to be published.
As she showed me story
after story of her Grammie books, written for
and with her grandchildren, I knew that I wanted
to read all of them. I was immediately convinced
that lots of other people would want to read
them too! Isn't that always the way? We can
often see the treasure in other people's work,
even before they acknowledge it themselves.
Humility is a beautiful trait; yet, sometimes we
can all benefit from a little nudge to let our
light shine on a whole new audience. It is my
honour and privilege to narrate Donna's
uplifting tales of real farm animals, whimsical
creatures and lovable kids.
| With Donna Mann at the Write!
Canada Awards Gala (2008) where
Donna’s book, Aggie’s Storms, was
short-listed for a Word Guild award.
“Aggie’s Storms” re-creates the
childhood of Agnes Macphail,
Canada’s first woman member of
parliament. My mother worked as
Agnes Macphail’s housekeeper for a
period of time during Agnes’
political career. While employed as
“Aggie’s girl” my mother met my
father who chauffeured Agnes
to various functions, and as they
say, “the rest is history!” |
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Photo by Doug Mann |
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