(A classic, gritty, uncompromising story about a young wom...)
A classic, gritty, uncompromising story about a young woman who struggles to choose her own path amidst formidable obstacles of family, place, and time.
(Based on the author’s life, the novel sneaks up on you, a...)
Based on the author’s life, the novel sneaks up on you, a beautifully written, charming and riveting tale that takes hold of your emotions and doesn’t let go.
(Falling in love creates an enchanted time, and when it's ...)
Falling in love creates an enchanted time, and when it's on the magical Sunshine Coast of British Columbia during the Second World War, it is never to be forgotten.
Mary Catherine Razzell is a Canadian writer and educator. She has authored poetry, short stories, and novels for young adults. One of her best-known works is ‘Snow Apples’.
Background
Ethnicity:
Mary Razzell’s mother came to Canada from Belfast, Ireland, in 1921.
Mary Catherine Razzell was born on February 20, 1930, in Calgary, Alberta, Canada. She is a daughter of Stephen Braerie Slinn, a mechanic and Royal Canadian Air Force flight servant, and instructor in the Department of Veterans Affairs, and Margaret Elizabeth McConnell, a domestic worker and homemaker.
Education
Family life was a conundrum for Mary Razzell in her childhood. She felt loved and encouraged by a father, a mechanic by trade, by choice as much as necessity, who was away from home and out of touch for a great deal of her childhood. At the same time, she felt unloved, discouraged, and even disparaged, by a mother who was never away.
Razzell’s Catholic mother found herself on her own with five children to raise and little in the way of reliable financial support. Still, she managed to eke out enough of a living to support her family through the Depression and war years. The effort took a tremendous toll, however. Bitterly resentful of and disappointed in the turn her life had taken, she vented much of her anger and frustration at home. There, as the second oldest child and only daughter, Razzell became a sounding board for her mother’s hurt and disillusionment, and a target for much of the pessimism, criticism, and suspicion this hurt and disillusionment bred.
If tenderness was in short supply, though, there was lots of enthusiasm for language and literature. Though Razzell’s mother had only a grade-four education, she possessed a very strong love of language and a great love of literature. She wrote poetry and short stories, and her work was published occasionally in community papers along the British Columbia coast. She was also interested in history and politics and served as secretary of the North Hill Social Credit Party when she lived in Calgary. Perhaps, it had an influence on Mary Razzell’s ongoing inclination to writing. She recalled writing her first story in grade five.
By the time she was ten, moving had become a regular feature of Razzell’s young life. When her parents could no longer meet the mortgage payments, they lost their house in Calgary. This blow, coupled with her father’s recurring pneumonia, prompted a move to British Columbia and, after this, the family moved every year or two. Razzell believes that all the moving also contributed to her eventual decision to become a writer.
When it came time to think about a career, though, the writing was not even a speck on the horizon of possibilities. Although Razzell recalls an early impression that she might enjoy being a home economist, the cost of a university education was beyond the family’s means. So, in 1951, she was sent to Saint Paul’s School of Nursing in Vancouver where she received her registered nursing diploma three years later.
Later, when her children were in high school, Razzell’s early interest in writing resurfaced. She registered in a night-school writing course. A year later, Razzell enrolled part-time at the University of British Columbia, tackling courses in literature and creative writing. The writing courses gave her the opportunity to study under authors George McWhirter and Carol Shields.
Career
Mary Razzell started her career from serving as a nurse while her husband completed his Ph.D. in microbiology and until she had children. After raising two sons and a daughter, she returned to nursing where, over the years, she worked her way through the gamut of hospital nursing services in Illinois and Vancouver. She especially enjoyed doing an oral history of nursing in British Columbia for the Registered Nurses Association of British Columbia. She was a certified childbirth educator when she retired in 1993.
When her children were in high school, Razzell returned to writing and registered in a night-school writing course. Taking this course was an important step toward changing career. She liked the teacher and sold an article. The heady thrill of seeing her name in print encouraged her to continue writing.
Razzell’s efforts paid off. She began to sell articles, as well as poems and short stories. At this stage, she was writing a lot of short stories. The inspiration for her short stories, which frequently feature a young girl from British Columbia’s Sunshine Coast, tended to come from her own experiences. When Shields, her creative writing instructor at the time, became intrigued by this young girl and encouraged Razzell to write about her in greater depth, she started work on an adult novel.
Razzell was well into work on this novel when she learned from her husband, who was out of the country, that their marriage was over. Fortunately, the writing project gave her a focus during a difficult time. She finished the book but set it aside, feeling that it was too personal to publish while her mother was still alive. When she finally decided to seek a publisher, she sent it to her agent in London, England. Although she had experienced success selling a story which was a chapter in Snow Apples to the BBC there were no takers for the book. The British market for first novels was flat.
Still, Eric Nicol, a writer and Mary Razzell met in 1979 when he served on the judging panel for the University of British Columbia Alumni Short Story Prize contest, provided encouragement on the home front. When he suggested that Douglas & McIntyre, a Vancouver publisher, might be interested in her book, Razzell followed his advice. The response was heartening. Although Douglas & McIntyre was not publishing fiction at the time, their representative offered to refer the book to Patsy Aldana, publisher of Groundwood Books in Toronto. Her adult novel, based on a short story, was destined to be rewritten for a young adult audience. The publishing deadline was very tight but, with Aldana’s help, Razzell met it – and Snow Apples was published in 1984.
The writer’s introduction to Groundwood was fortuitous. The collaboration has resulted in the publication of three more novels, ‘Salmonberry Wine’, a sequel to ‘Snow Apples’, and two stand-alone titles, ‘Night Fires’ and ‘White Wave’.
During the course of her further career, Mary Razzell has published more books about families, identity, and strong young women.
Quotations:
"When I write I’m trying to work out something that’s bothering me, trying to find out why things happened. When the stories or books are written, I feel a sense of ease."
"While I like contemporary young people, I can’t pretend to know what’s in their minds and what their experiences have been. What I can write about is my own truth. I have to be very careful that I don’t allow my truth, which is real and will ring true to the reader, to be overcome by what someone else wants."
Membership
Mary Razzell has been a member of the Canadian Society of Children's Authors, Illustrators and Performers, and Children’s Writers and Illustrators of British Columbia.
Personality
Mary Razzell straight from the heart. Her novels are rooted solidly in places she has been, people she has known, emotions she has wrestled with, and experiences she has weathered.
Quotes from others about the person
Michele Landsberg’s Guide to Children’s Books, Michele Landsberg wrote that Mary Razzell has achieved “what more clinical authors have failed to do: [she] forcefully conveys the driving urgency of teenage eroticism and the need for love.”
Interests
oral history, reading books, walking, baking
Sport & Clubs
bike riding, swimming, camping
Connections
Mary Razzell married a microbiologist Bill Razzell on September 22, 1951. The family produced three children named Daniel, Robin, and Jim.
After Mary and Bill divorced, Mary remarried on February 11, 1986. A writer Eric Nicol became her second husband. He died on February 2, 2011.