News / Sort by date

For a couple of nerve-crunching months this past summer, I couldn't tear myself away from the fractious, foul-mouthed, flat-out dispiriting debate over U.S. health care. Watching the epithets fly from sober, well-mannered Canada, where we think of health care as a citizen's right and would no sooner pack a gun at a public meeting than abandon our firstborn child in the woods, I sometimes felt like a rubbernecker at the scene of a brutal car crash. [more]

When everyone wants a piece of you, a deadline looms and you've been cracking your brain on an onslaught of big decisions, it can be dangerously tempting to treat your own powers like a beast of burden. I know the feeling---and I learned the hard way that I couldn't revitalize Canada's best-read magazine for women if I didn't take care of my own vitality. That's just one of the defining moments I'll be sharing on October 29 at the Women in Business Luncheon in Belleville, Ontario. [more]

Now that brain power has trumped muscle power, how can we reshape the economy to take full advantage of women's capacity and creative energy? On October 28 I'll explore that question over breakfast with three women leaders in a place dedicated to innovation---Toronto's MaRS Centre. [more]

You can tell a lot about a book from the first sentence. Here's the latest one that hooked me: "It was just the two of us, my mother and me, after my father left." I knew I was about to read an honest-to-goodness story with characters on the brink of change they never dared imagine and a plot to keep me wondering, "What will happen next?" These old-fashioned pleasures, often shunted aside by fashionably minimalist fiction, are front and centre in my sister Joyce Maynard's new novel Labor Day. [more]

Although I'll happily admit to being over 55, I never think of my age as a defining part of my identity. Still, when Fifty-Five Plus magazine suggested a cover profile of me, I was not about to say no. Especially since I knew the writer, Jenefer Curtis, who wrote for me at Chatelaine and is one of my readers here at ronamaynard.com. [more]

I remember when we hardly said a word about mental illness in the workplace. The business community lost talent, time and money because no one dared to face the truth. So when the Women's Executive Network asked me to be the Patron Host of a May 4 luncheon in Toronto that will highlight the business case for grappling with mental illness, I was quick to say, "Count me in." [more]

When I wrote my first Chatelaine editorial on overcoming my chronic depression, a reader called to thank me. She was struggling with her own debilitating depression, yet she couldn't bring herself to say the word, so great is the stigma that surrounds this treatable condition. I'll be thinking of her on April 15, when I'll be speaking in Saint John at the Canadian Mental Health Association's third annual A Day in her Shoes fundraiser. [more]

How can you attract---and keep---a mentor who'll open doors for you? Can a corporate program connect you with that special person? And once you're on the path to success, how can you find time to mentor others without running yourself ragged in the process? These questions are close to my heart, for reasons you'll discover in the March issue of Best Health, at Canadian newsstands now. [more]

Have you ever thought that inspirational leaders look nothing like you? That they never struggle with uncertainty, never admit to failure, never answer burning questions with "I don't know"? I used to buy the same tired leadership myths. In fact, I never thought of myself as a leader until I looked around and noticed that people were following. On March 26 I'll share the seven lessons of my leadership journey at Sudbury's annual Celebrate Women fundraiser. [more]

Have you ever wondered how certain people keep blowing your cool to smithereens? Where they get that seemingly infallible power to make you run for cover---or shoot your mouth off and kick yourself afterwards? Rona Maynard has been there. She let ego-bashers, nay-sayers and win-at-all-costs competitors stand between her and her goals. Then she learned to turn crazy-making conflicts into wellsprings of strength and inspiration. [more]