The Story Girl

Lucy Maud Montgomery was one of the most famous Canadian writers of the twentieth century. She is best known for her books for young adults, particularly Anne of Green Gables and its six sequels chronicling the adventures of Anne Shirley, a feisty but sentimental orphan who is adopted by elderly foster parents. In her lifetime, Lucy published 20 novels and some 500 short stories and poems. Her writing, rich in imagination and full of lessons in optimism, brought her international fame and remains popular today. Lucy was born on Prince Edward Island, Canada, in 1874. Soon after her mother died (when Lucy was just two), her father remarried and moved away. He left Lucy to be raised by her maternal grandparents in Cavendish. The isolation of this small town combined with the strict discipline of her grandparents led to an unhappy childhood. Lucy was an avid reader and writer at an early age. She published her first poem in a local paper at the age of fifteen. She studied literature at Dalhousie University in Halifax, then returned to Cavendish to take care of her grandmother, worked at a local post office, and became a schoolteacher. While caring for her grandmother, she wrote Anne of Green Gables. Several publishers rejected the book before it was finally accepted, and it became a bestseller. Eventually, it was made into a musical, a television movie, and a television series. Lucy later married a minister and moved to Ontario, where she died in 1942.

Grace Conlin (1962–1997) was the recording name of Grainne Cassidy, an award-winning actress and acclaimed narrator. She was a member of the Woolly Mammoth Theatre Company in Washington, DC, and won a Helen Hayes Award in 1988 for her role in Woolly Mammoth’s production of Savage in Limbo.