April 7, 1992
“Dear Anne, I don’t know where to begin?
...I was surprised that you wanted to know about me. To tell you the truth I don’t deserve it. You probably think I deserted you. Not true. I hope Al has explained the details. But maybe I can make it a little more clear. My mother was a very strict Roman Catholic person. Very determined and one-sided in her thinking. There was no way that my mother would aloud me to marry Al or keep you. I was still underage and living at home. I had no other means of support and neither did your father at the time. There was no support group or financial support in those days like there is now. It was the hardest thing I had to do was give you up.”
The Sound of Ice Cracking emerged out of two letters sent to Anne by her birth mother at the cusp of Anne’s adulthood. In one of the letters her birth mother reveals…
“As for me, I am French-Indian...”
What Anne learned about who she might be from those letters, was like a beacon for her pathway through life.
Anne has been writing stories and poetry since childhood and completed her novel in March of 2018. Anne took the Publishing course at Centennial College in Toronto, was an intern at Second Story Press, and worked in the publishing industry for several years before she became a full-time mom. She married her partner when Ontario legalized same-sex marriage (separated), and is raising two loving boys.
Anne is a talented visual artist, avid Raptors fan, and one of many magical people dancing through life with ADD, and killing it!
There is “…a human need to be told stories. The more we’re governed by idiots and have no control over our destinies, the more we need to tell stories to each other about who we are, why we are here, where we come from, and what might be possible.”
—Alan Rickman
The Sound of Ice Cracking was percolating in my mind for decades, and I finally began to write while raising two little boys. I needed to write this story. I paraphrase Rickman in saying, we need to be told stories through whatever medium we choose, and books are a medium that continues to engage, inspire, entertain, and inform people globally.
The Sound of Ice Cracking is a story that invites the reader into a contemporary microcosm of First Nations life that Canadians should and must know better. The boisterous narrative offers up a glimmer of insight into “who we are, where we come from, why we are here, and what might be possible.” Many things set us apart in this country - regionally, culturally and economically - however we all share the need for compassion and understanding.
The scale of benevolence in human nature is what makes the story, The Sound of Ice Cracking appealing to many genres of readers.
