Welcome to my online community. Instead of wine or coffee, I’m serving stories—the kind women tell among friends.
They’re drawn from my life and other lives that have inspired me. I’m lucky enough to have spent my career exchanging stories with women. At Chatelaine, where I spent a decade as Editor, I shared my defining moments in a monthly column. Thousands of readers identified. They taught me how much we have in common—and how much we have to learn from one another.
The conversation continues right here. You'll learn about my new memoir, My Mother's Daughter, which Chatelaine readers encouraged me to write. You can read and comment on some of my most popular articles. You can post a story in honour of your own mother-or your daughter. And you can follow my blog, Letters from Rona. Now over to you.
Credits: Photo © Jonathan Sprague; hair, JC Salons
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Rona Maynard is an author, speaker and former Editor of Chatelaine. Everything she knows about the real lives of women, she learned from women like you.
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From the book:
I said to my father, "You don't live here anymore. This is my mother's house, not yours. It's time for you to go." My father cursed me. He shook his fist. Then he left and never came back.

Condolence notes I've treasured
Last month I shared what life and loss have taught me about the writing of condolence notes. That post already ranks with the most popular I've written since this site began almost two years ago. So here I am with an open file folder of the letters that sustained me after the death of my mother, the author and broadcaster Fredelle Maynard. Almost 20 years later, I still reread my favourites. They remind me of the power we all have to lighten one another's burdens. [more]
April 8, 2009
Celebrate National Mental Health Week with Rona Maynard
[more]
April 2, 2009
Rona Maynard speaks in Saint John about women and depression
[more]
February 25, 2009
Want to be (or find) a mentor? Read my advice in Best Health
[more]
This is your space for celebrating your mother—or your daughter. If not for her, you’d be a different person. Share a story, post a photo and find out what other women have to say about the women who shaped their lives.
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(Click on image to see full sized photo)
Myrna Cheeseman
I don't tell my mom, Myrna, often enough, but she inspires me regularly.
My mom was 37 when she and dad adopted me, and mom was essentially a single mom for large stretches...
[More]
Mary (Longo) Lucchetta
Mom & Me, on the Q.T.
My mom and I had a secret relationship.
Secret enough that hardly anyone knows about the conversations I had with her the last few days of her life....
[More]
Patricia M. Rayner
My favorite photo of my mother is one I took when I was about 16. I no longer have it, but it is etched in my mind forever.
In the photo, Mom was saying...
[More]
For nearly 18 months I have been exchanging emails with Kathleen, a Kitchener woman 30 years my junior. We met over Dorothy, the California skunk, who fell asleep in a truckload of spa hose and travelled to Mississauga where she then became a logistical problem for those charged with returning the striped creature to... [more]
Written by claudette Sandecki, July 02, 2009

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