Dr. Epperly was interviewed by Megan Follows in the University of Prince Edward Island Robertson Library Archives and Special Collections as part of Follows’ forthcoming documentary. Follows and Epperly both attended the L.M. Montgomery Institute’s biennial conference where Follows was a keynote speaker. Follows’ presentation was titled, “Anne of Everywhere: How A Redheaded Girl from PEI Became Canada’s Greatest Cultural Ambassador and Changed my Life Forever.”
On June 26th, 2024, at Green Gables in Cavendish, PEI, with Deputy Prime Minister Chrystia Freeland as special presiding guest, Brenda Jones’s winning coin (design) of Montgomery and Anne was launched. Montgomery is the first artist to appear in Canada on a circulation coin: a fitting tribute in this 150th birthday year. Here I (in white) am speaking with artist Brenda Jones (daughter of Green Gables’ own Pauline Webb Jones) while Dr. Kate Scarth (UPEI/LMMI Chair in L.M. Montgomery Studies) and UPEI Vice-President, Academic and Research, Dr. Greg Naterer, stand in front of a replica of the new coin.
Brenda Jones designed a beautiful illustration for the Royal Canadian Mint’s tribute for Montgomery’s 150th birthday: a one-dollar circulation coin, featuring Montgomery dreaming up Anne, with a glimpse of colourful PEI landscape beyond. I was a consultant on the various texts for the image. Click on the coin below to go to the Royal Canadian Mint website to learn more.
Notice the details of the coin: Montgomery’s pen, her famous cat-image signature. The “BJ” identify the artist. This is also the very first Canadian circulation coin to bear the image of King Charles III. Thanks to the Heirs of L.M. Montgomery, Inc. for including me as a consultant for this Royal Canadian Mint project.
– Betsy
2024 marks the 150th anniversary of Montgomery’s birth, and the L.M. Montgomery Institute is broadcasting 150 special tributes to Montgomery over the course of the year, culminating in a huge celebration on Montgomery’s actual birthday, November 30th.
To mark the 31st anniversary of the launching of the L.M. Montgomery Institute in April of 1993, the LMMI invited me (founder of the LMMI), the Chair of the L.M. Montgomery Institute management committee (Philip Smith), a former committee member and long-time Montgomery enthusiast (Rosemary Herbert), and former Senator and Premier Catherine Callbeck (who supported the launching) to offer our tributes to and about Montgomery. https://journaloflmmontgomerystudies.ca/news/Maud150/Anniversary-LMMI-Launch
All of the tributes will be posted here: https://journaloflmmontgomerystudies.ca/maud150
Elisabeth Egan of the New York Times asked such good questions in our email and telephone interviews. I am so glad the LMMI got into this piece!
Emily Woster (curator) and I (contributing consultant) are thrilled with the interest in the annemanuscript.ca site since its launching on January 19, 2022.
Some 10,000 people from 50+ countries have visited the site so far.
See articles in Quill & Quire, the Globe and Mail, CTV, CBC, and in Emily Woster’s hometown newspaper in Duluth, Minnesota. The exhibit has been noted on sites in Japan, Ukraine and Poland.
Emily gives a wonderful introduction to the site at the official launching on January 19, 2023, at the Confederation Centre of the Arts, with a packed room and people linked in from all over the world. Click here to watch the exhibition opening.
Emily Woster (curator) and I (contributing consultant) had so much fun working on this for the past two and a half years. Click here for the site: The Anne of Green Gables Manuscript: L.M. Montgomery and the Creation of Anne
Amazing how an interviewer can compress 35 minutes of interview into less than 3 minutes of video! Beth Cavert and I are so excited about the discovery and also about putting the postcards into the full context of the letters (Beth’s Complete Correspondence will do this).
-Betsy
Click here for the video: Lucy Maud Montgomery. Long-lost letters. History. Intrigue.
On June 5th I got this wonderful piece of news from the editors, Dr. Kate Scarth and Dr Emily Woster, of the L.M. Montgomery Institute’s new on-line, open-access journal:
“We’re delighted to announce that the journal is now live at journaloflmmontgomerystudies.ca!
Thanks to all of you for your work on and support of the journal. On the website you’ll find our Welcome Message, a video announcing the journal, an article by Elizabeth Epperly (“Reading Time: L.M. Montgomery and the ‘Alembic of Fiction'”), and an article by Julie Sellers (“‘A Good Imagination Gone Wrong’: Reading Anne of Green Gables as a Quixotic Novel”), as well as the static content that many of you have given feedback on. Acknowledgments are here. There’s more content coming soon!
Just a reminder that the journal accepts and publishes submissions on a rolling basis so keep those submissions coming and encourage your colleagues to submit too.
Thanks for all,
Kate and Emily”
Elizabeth Rollins Epperly 