Mary McDonald-Rissanen

Area of Expertise:

Women's life writing

Prince Edward Island women and their performance and representation in their diaries, letters, poetry, and art work

Biography:

Island born Mary McDonald-Rissanen grew up in Summerside, Prince Edward Island, studied in Kinkora, Charlottetown, and Denmark before moving to Finland. Since the 1970s Mary has been a lecturer and researched language and literature at the University of Tampere (Finland) where she earned her doctorate in Comparative Literature with her dissertation entitled Sandstone Diaries - Prince Edward Island Women's Nineteenth- and Twentieth-Century Life Writing . Mary lives in Finland and summers in Darnley, PEI.

My books

Raven - The Story of Françoise de Moreau Latrician Hamilton (1739-1829) (2024)

“Raven, that beautiful black bird that never failed to entertain me outside my bedroom window, and I share a name. I loved the name and the bird who took away my loneliness in those moments of despair when I knew I was an appendage in my adopted family. Raven reminded me that I was part of a larger family of creatures, big and small.”

“Nestled in the copse of old oak trees near England’s New Forest is a unique house with an even more unique history. Twenty-first century women from around the world flock there to seek advice and knowledge on issues pertaining to their health and well-being. ‘Raven’s Nest’ derives it name from its founder Françoise de Moreau Latrician Hamilton, an 18th century woman who lived nearby. When Françoise came into the Hamilton family having been adopted from the local Catholic orphanage, her older ‘brother’ gave her the nickname Raven because of her black hair.”

Excerpts from Raven - The Story of Françoise de Moreau Latrician Hamilton (1739-1829)

Mary previously published on Prince Edward Island’s women’s life writing in In the Interval of the Wave: Prince Edward Island Women’s Nineteenth- and Early Twentieth-Century Life Writing (2014) and Choosing the Island “through the warp and woof of time.” Women who made twentieth-century Prince Edward Island their home (2021)

Reviews of Raven - The Story of Françoise de Moreau Latrician Hamilton (1739-1829):

In this fast-paced and beautifully illustrated picaresque novel, the author draws upon her academic research in women’s history and life writing to chronicle the experiences of her heroine Raven as she negotiates her fate in the dramatic developments of the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries in the North Atlantic world. Business ventures, the slave trade, and global wars serve as a backdrop for Raven’s personal challenges in Britain, France, and Prince Edward Island. Working imaginatively with sources such as herbal remedies, music, poetry, and recipes to fill the gaps in women’s history, the author brings a satisfying complexity to Raven’s story of accommodation and resistance, a story that still resonates with readers in the twenty-first century.
- Margaret Conrad, Professor Emerita in History, University of New Brunswick (2024)

Availability

Mary McDonald-Rissanen’s books are available in Prince Edward Island at:

Mentions of Raven - The Story of Françoise de Moreau Latrician Hamilton:

From The Buzz (PEI) August 2024

Internationally recognized Island author goes hybrid

Having researched and published on Prince Edward Island women’s expressions of their lives, Mary McDonald-Rissanen’s latest book is a hybrid of fact and fiction on an 18th-century woman who lived on Prince Edward Island (PEI) in the early 19th-century.

Raven is the story of a child of mysterious origins who bonds with her wealthy adopted family’s maid, Pamela, and documents their sojourns in nature in her words, images, and actions. During the advancement of colonialism, slavery, and the increased popularity of medical science in 18th century England, Raven and Pamela’s activities with natural cures and practices are met with suspicion which sends Pamela to prison and Raven first to exile in Wales and then Prince Edward Island.

Once on the Island, Raven, with her son and grandchildren, continues to document her natural milieu, textually and visually. A letter from Pamela interrupts Raven’s existence and together with her once influential son and granddaughter she sets sail for France to claim her inheritance.

We enter Raven’s life with May who finds Raven’s diary in her PEI childhood home and brings its numerous illustrations and stories to the light of day. We leave with May and disciples of Raven and Pamela in England’s New Forest at the opening of Raven’s Nest, a home for alternative care for women.

In the Interval of the Wave - Prince Edward Island Women's Nineteenth- and Early Twentieth-Century Life Writing (2014)

Capturing the hidden histories of Prince Edward Island women in their handwritten pages.

Taking its title from a poem by Prince Edward Island poet Anne Compton, In the Interval of the Wave is a close study of diaries written by Prince Edward Island women in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.

Women from both rural and urban regions of the Island recorded their lives in a genre that allowed them to play with the conventions of the language they knew. For busy farm wives, their quotidian language, syntax, and choice of topic appear simple, whereas for the urban elite like Margaret Gray Lord and Wanda Wyatt, the erudition of their diaries suggests a more leisured existence. Mary McDonald-Rissanen argues that the initial reception of the text - its physical appearance, handwriting, gaps, and flood of words - provides interesting insights for understanding the circumstances of Prince Edward Island women from times past. Intertextual readings of the diaries alongside other cultural artifacts such as paintings, histories, folk stories, and songs embellish the idiosyncratic diary discourse.

Diaries enabled women to write their voices, create a subjective identity, and redefine their place in the world. In the Interval of the Wave exposes lives lived and recorded in a special moment and place never far from the rhythm of the sea. In the Interval of the Wave - McGill-Queen's University

Reader review of In the Interval of the Wave…:
It's so interesting to observe how "In the Interval of Wave" reflects Mary's PEI and Finnish backgrounds. Life on a land surrounded by the sea shaped the lives and stories of its inhabitants, while the world renowned Finnish respect for reflective time during conversation gives a lovely nuance to the delivery of Mary's book. Deliciously thought provoking.
- Judy Grant, retired teacher, PEI (2015)

Links to journal reviews of In the Interval of the Wave

Book review by Coral Ann Howells in the "British Journals of Canadian Studies"

Book review by Kristie Collins in "Island Studies Journal" Vol.9., No.2. 2014 (pages 399-401)

Book review by Melanie Reid in "Biography", Volume 37, Number 4, Fall 2014, pp. 1157-1161

Book review by Bartlett, Joshua (2015) in "The Goose": Vol. 13: Iss. 2, Article 6.

Review available here

Review by Sarah Glassford " It's (Still) Complicated:Region and Gender in Recent Works of Atlantic Canadian Women's and Gender History" Acadiensis 44-1 Winter spring 2015

Choosing the Island “through the warp and woof of time” Women who made twentieth century Prince Edward Island their home(2021)

Choosing the Island “through the warp and woof of time” Women who made twentieth century Prince Edward Island their home explores, analyzes, and records the lives of five immigrant women - Elsie Sark, Elaine Harrison, Joan Colborne, Janina Zielinski, and Erica Rutherford - and their rapport with their Island through their auto/biographical endeavours. Although work has been done on Elaine Harrison and Erica Rutherford, and to some extent on Elsie Sark, there has been little on Joan Colborne and even less, if any at all, on Janina Zielinski.

The inspiration for this book has arisen from my previous studies of the diaries of L.M. Montgomery (“Veils and Gaps: Women's Life Writing in Early 20th Century Prince Edward Island,” unpublished licentiate thesis) and those of less prominent Island women ( In the Interval of the Wave: Prince Edward Island Women's Nineteenth- and Early Twentieth-Century Life Writing , McGill-Queen's University Press, 2014).

My research, conference papers, and publications have resulted in a strong desire to look deeper into the lives and writing of women immigrants and their impact on the Island. Furthermore, the sense of affinity with them, being an emigrant from PEI to Europe, gave me the motivation to explore, through these five women, how they felt and fared in a new place. Their diaries, poetry, paintings, letters, autobiographies, and biographies have provided a point of departure for studying their lives and their action on numerous fronts, for example: the arts, their community engagement, gardening, teaching, all of which reveal how they became part of the Island fabric.

Mentions:

The book was also featured in November's The Buzz.

buzzpei.com/choosing-the-island-through-the-warp-and-woof-of-time

Reviews of Choosing the Island…

I had the pleasure of reading Mary McDonald-Risannen's Choosing the Island while spending a semester on the red shores of Prince Edward Island.

The captivating prose of Choosing the Island brought local history alive in an excellent exploration of womanhood, settlement, and life-writing.

McDonald-Rissanen writes with captivating intimacy, bringing the reader inside the journals, hearts, minds, and homes of the women she chronicles. McDonald-Rissanen's work gives voice and presence to these women in a unique and meaningful way that is factual, respectful, and distinctly island.

In both Choosing the Island and McDonald-Rissanen's first book In the Interval of the Wave, the use of primary sources is poignant and personal. You will feel at home in Choosing the Island, and Mary McDonald-Rissanen is there to welcome you.

- Kate Bradley, Student of History, University of Waterloo, Ontario, Canada

This thoughtful book is a welcome addition to the growing body of literature on the life stories by and about women in the Maritime Provinces of Canada.

Focusing on five remarkable twentieth-century immigrants to Prince Edward Island, the author draws upon a variety of theoretical models, a wide range of textual sources, and her own experience as an immigrant to Finland to raise important questions about women's agency and identity.

Readers of this volume will almost certainly have their assumptions about “the Island” disrupted and their views of the female migrant/refugee experience expanded as it continues to evolve in our troubled world.

- Margaret Conrad, Professor Emerita, University of New Brunswick, Canada
Co-author, No Place Like Home: The Diaries and Letters of Nova Scotia Women, 1771-1938
I have been thinking today about how much, through your writing, you have brought women to the forefront. You are an amazing woman yourself. Hope International Day of the Woman was a gift to you especially since you have introduced so many wonderful women to us. Thank you, Mary. proud to call you Friend.
- Helen MacKinnon Grand River, PEI, retired teacher and principal, wrote on International Women's Day, 8 March 2022

Mary McDonald-Rissanen, Choosing the Island “through the warp and woof of time” This enchanting book is about presences and present times as it interweaves the past lives of women who immigrated to Prince Edward Island with the lives of women in the contemporary Island community, all lives lived within the overarching presence of the Island itself. These stories are recorded by an Island woman scholar who now lives in Finland, and who writes with the empathy of someone seeing herself in a mirror, or rather multiple mirrors.

To put it another way, this book is a beautifully researched chapter of PEI history in the feminine: the story of five 20th century women of European origin, all border crossers from “away”, who chose the Island as their home and where most of them stayed for many years, remaking their lives in a new community with its distinctive Island sensibility.

The book is filled with women's stories and women's voices - five told in detail through their letters and diaries, poems, paintings and photographs, two published autobiographies and one biography - though other Indigenous and immigrant women's stories remain in the shadows, waiting to be pieced together. Like the story of PEI itself with its history of social and cultural change, these are stories of transition and transformation, for “Once you have slept on an island, you'll never be quite the same”.

- Coral Ann Howells, FRSC
Professor Emerita, University of Reading, England
Senior Research Fellow, Institute of English Studies, University of London, England

Articles:

  • Book review of Choosing the Island “through the warp and woof of time”: Women who made twentieth century Prince Edward Island Canada their home in Island Studies Journal, 18(1), 2023, pp. 306-312 ISJ.18.1.Reviews.pdf (islandstudiesjournal.org).
  • Article in the Finnish Swedish daily Hufvudstadsbladet 20 March 2023 entitled “How does one recreate oneself in a new location?” Hon lämnade ”Anne från Grönkullas ö” för Tammerfors – men ön lämnade inte henne (hbl.fi).
  • “Emily lives on in Finland: Two Finnish poets write Emily into Adulthood” Emily Lives on in Finland: Two Finnish Poets Write Emily into Adulthood | Journal of L.M. Montgomery Studies (journaloflmmontgomerystudies.ca). 2020
  • “That little red-haired girl: The classic encounter of Finland and Canada in literature.” Article in Canada-Finland Celebrating 2017. Finnish-Canadian Society and Embassy of Canada to Finland. Kirjapaino Bookcover Oy: Seinäjoki, Finland. 140-2.
  • Review for Lifewriting: Magdalena Ozarska. Lacework or Mirror? Diary Poetics of Frances Burney, Dorothy Wordsworth and Mary Shelley. Newcastle upon Tyne: Cambridge Scholars Press, 2013.
  • “More of young Maud.” Book review of The Complete Journals of L.M. Montgomery: The PEI Years, 1889-1900. Eds. by Mary Henley Rubio and Elizabeth Hillman Waterston. Don Mills, Ontario: Oxford University Press, 2012 in The Modern Language Review publication of Modern Humanities Research Association (MHRA) 110 (1), 249-250.
  • Book Review – Basements and Attics, Closets and Cyberspace –Explorations in Canadian Women’s Archives in CANTEXT – The Newsletter of the British Association of Canadian Studies (BACS) 16 (1).
  • Crooked Ribs, Modern Martyrs, and Dull Days – Recovering Hidden Prince Edward Island Women through Their Lifewriting" in Regenerations- Canadian Women’s Writing. Marie Carrière and Patricia Demers, eds. Edmonton, Alberta: The University of Alberta Press, 2014.
  • "If I were Anne - Anne of Green Gables in the Palestinian Classroom" Soletas Reviste (26) 281-192.
  • “Running out of cheeks to turn in Palestine” in Helsinki Times’ 8 Febuary 2008.
  • “Tease. flash or blurb - the language conundrum of journalist terminology” in Kääntäjä-Översättaren’ (Translator Magazine) February 2007.
  • “Writing Home: Pioneer Emma Chadwick Stretch’s Portrayal of Life in 19th Century Rural Prince Edward Island” 2006. In Home and Exile Selected Papers from the 4th International Tartu Conference on Canadian Studies. Cultural Studies Series No.7. The Baltic Center for North American Studies, The Estonian Association for Canadian Studies, University of Tartu. Eva Rein and Krista Vogelberg, editors.
  • “Imaging the Past: Atlantic Canada and Popular Representations” 2005. In First and Other Nations. University of Helsinki Press: Helsinki. Mark Shackleton and Veera Supinen, editors.
  • “Veils and Gaps: The private worlds of LM Montgomery and Amy Andrew” 2005. In LM Montgomery's Intimate Life. University of Toronto Press. Irene Gammel, editor.
  • “Pulling back the thin veil - the poetic discourse of Lucy Maud Montgomery” 2001. In The Nordic Association for Canadian Studies Text Series, Volume 16. University of Iceland Press: Reykjavik. Gudrun Björk Gudsteins, editor.
  • “The Landscapes of Lucy Maud Montgomery” 2000. In Tampereen Yliopiston Kielikeskus 25 vuotta (Tampere University Language Centre 25 year publication). Tampere: Tampereen Yliopisto.

Education:

  • Doctoral dissertation (PhD) 2008, Department of Literature and the Arts, University of Tampere, Finland. Dissertation: Sandstone Diaries: Prince Edward Island Women’s Nineteenth- and Twentieth-Century Life Writing
  • Licentiate degree, (FL) 2002, Department of Literature and the Arts, University of Tampere, Finland. Licentiate thesis: Veils and Gaps: Women's Life Writing in Early 20th Century Prince Edward Island
  • Master of Arts (TEFL -Teaching English as a Foreign Language) 1995, University of Reading, Reading, England. MA thesis: ‘An Investigation into Finnish University Students' Reflection and their Metacognitive Awareness’
  • Bachelor of Education BEd (1981), University of Prince Edward Island, Charlottetown, Prince Edward Island, Canada
  • Bachelor of Arts BA (1972), University of Prince Edward Island, Charlottetown, Prince Edward Island, Canada

Awards:

1991 Scholarship from the British Council

2000 Faculty Enrichment Grant (Canadian Government)

2010 Aid to Scholarly Publications (Canadian Government)

2014 Scholarship for research on “Place and Identity: A study of the literary discourse in letters, diaries, and life writing of 20th century women” (Niilo Helander Foundation, Finland)

2022 Cultural Activities Award from the City of Summerside, PEI, Canada

Cultural Activities Award from the City of Summerside, PEI, Canada (2022)

Choosing the Island - Through the Warp and Woof of Time: Women who made twentieth century Prince Edward Island, their home, has been described as a fascinating read.

It is the City's honour to recognize Mary McDonald Rissanen for her written contribution to the cultural community of Summerside and beyond.

The City of Summerside is pleased to present a Cultural Activities Award to Mary McDonald Rissanen for the 2021 publication of her book, Choosing the Island - Through the Warp and Woof of Time: Women who made twentieth century Prince Edward Island, their home.

Mary, a resident of Finland, grew up in Summerside and returns each summer. Since the 1970s, she has lectured and researched language and literature at the University of Tampere, where she earned her doctorate in Comparative Literature.

Through her work, Mary has explored the lives of Island women, including her 2014 book, In the Interval of the Wave: Prince Edward Island Women's Nineteenth and Early Twentieth Century Life Writing and through her thesis, “Veils and Gaps: Women's Life Writing in Early 20th Century Prince Edward Island”.

Choosing the Island explores, analyzes and records the lives of five women who immigrated to PEI in the twentieth century. The women were Elsie Sark, Elaine Harrison, Joan Colborne, Janina Zielinski, and Erica Rutherford.

The diaries, poetry, paintings, letters, autobiographies, and biographies of the women provided “a point of departure for studying their lives, and their action on numerous fronts such as the arts, community engagement, gardening and teaching, which revealed how the women became a part of the Island fabric.”

Contact information: Mary McDonald-Rissanen: [email protected]

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