Hi- hope you are all well!  We just wanted to say hello and share some of the latest!  

Love Anna and Katarina

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Quick update to let you know that the novel's creative process is well underway, and taking the time that it needs to ensure the story is told the way it should.  Katarina's hope is that she has a "rough edit" by July/August and then spend two months finalizing and detailing.  There are three ideal book launch dates  for us to consider;

October 5, 2012: the 65th anniversary of the child murders.

November 6, 2012: the 65th anniversary of Molly's suicide.

January 15, 2013: the 60th anniversary of the discovery of the child skeletons in Stanley Park.  [this would be the most appropriate date].

The "journalistic" approach is flowing and suits Katarina's artistic vision.  Wrestling the vast research into a user friendly, haunting book is the goal.  

What else are we up to?

Molly artist, Katarina, is currently working fulltime on the Downtown Eastside with at-risk youth where she runs a filmmaking/visual art program with her brother, filmmaker, Fred Thorsen.  The program, Intersections Media, is slated to continue until March 2013.

Katarina is also excited about using her journal techniques and her cornucopia of art therapy experience to develop a workbook/conference series, currently titled Drawing On... with the first focus on women.  This will be an exciting career shift for Katarina, moving from frontline work, to developing programs that can reach a larger audience. 

Interactive art events are in the works as well.  One art event, in pre-production, will be a celebration of Molly and revolve around 1940s style mugshot portraits of local celebrities and personalities.  This will be held in Vancouver BC initially.  Stay tuned for invites!

Another art event, currently under discussion, will be hosted by Anna in San Francisco and will include giant portraits of San Francisco personalities which event-goers will finish during the event and will include live portrait painting by Katarina. Stay tuned for details!

Molly producer, Anna, is thriving in San Francisco and has just launched her new site: THE SOCIAL LIFE and is receiving accolades and critical acclaim:  

There are People to meet, Places to go and Things to do.

The Social Life profiles the fabulous and fashionable People, Places and Things from cities all over North America.

Editor-In-Chief, Anna T Fabulous, currently lives in San Francisco.

I've decided on a journal-istic approach to presenting Molly.  In celebration of her birthday, I'm sharing the family tree page I worked on tonight. - Katarina

I’ve decided that the story of how I uncovered/discovered Molly is as interesting as the story of Molly herself. - Katarina

 

I hesitate to start writing… because I don’t trust my ability to tell the story.  Or to even draw it out properly.  So I need to trust that I have the story in me already.  I know it better than anyone else.  And I should trust that I can, therefore, tell it better than anyone else.  I’ve been struggling with how to tell it.  Do I add the research journey into it or just include Molly references?  

… Looking at the overall picture and verifying yet again that Molly seems to be the perfect fit.  Or at least she’ll do. She seems to want me to tell the story.  It all just seems to fall into place when I work on it.  It’s only fear and hesitation that has kept me from trusting that I can do this.  This is my dream.  To do a graphic novel about Molly.  And I’m doing it.  So really, I’ve achieved success.  Because I’m now in the process.  And that is the best part of it. I’ve been in it since 2003.

The banker boxes are glorious.  The binders are impressive.  The collaboration with mom and dad brings me to tears.  I know now that the journey of finding Molly, the original story of the boys themselves, needs to be part of it.  And I need to just do it without hesitation like I do my art and journals…

I was going to leave myself out of it.  I was even going to write as if I was Molly- a diary.  But it’s my story.  I am just as much part of it as she is.  

Many subjects that are common conversation today were shrouded in silence when I was growing up in fifties.  The unspeakable back then included a diverse range of facts, such as a parent’s cancer diagnosis, the adoption of a child to an infertile couple, the love between two women, a baby born to a single mother, or the violence happening in somebody’s home.  The unspeakable also included such feels as a mother’s rage at her child or her desire for an ambitious, adventuresome life outside the confines of her prescribed role.

- Harriet Lerner, The Dance of Connection

FORMAT:

I've been experimenting with format and may have come up with the perfect one that will allow me to tell both Molly's story and the (perhaps more intriguing) story of how I found her.  The format is inspired by two books: the Irish children's book Shaun O'Day of Ireland by Madeline Brandels (1929) and the Swedish children's book Gammel-Farfar Berättar om Saker och Ting by Anders Suneson (1990).

I don't want to divulge too much for a while as I want to ensure it's working.

STORYTELLING:

Here's a fun sketch of my notes during my brother Fred's lecture on storytelling.  It's a great simple structure to guide the story of Molly.

"It look's like a treasure map!" - Matthew Roy

RESPONSES:

It was interesting to "air out" the current drawings at the Rubble Gallery to test audience response.  The two pieces that got the most attention were:

and

- Katarina Thorsen