A portrait of Joan Stockdale, my Canadian birth mother I never knew based on her diaries and letters. A three dimensional reflection of her in me, an undoubtedly flawed mirror. BACKSTORY Joan Stockdale discovered she was pregnant by her professor, who she referred to as ‘my monster’, shortly before or during a University of Regina (Saskatchewan, Canada) theatre trip to London. She stayed to have her baby, giving her newborn son up for adoption. After the birth, Joan made a new life in England, only occasionally returning home to visit family in rural Saskatchewan. She worked in Senate House as a secretary for the University of London — a job she was ambivalent about, at best. She died of metastatic cancer at University College Hospital, in February 1987, at the age of 37. Her diaries and letters were a key source for the script of THE ELECTRICITY IN ME, documenting Joan's wry and detailed reflections on life. By all accounts she was endlessly creative, did not suffer fools gladly, refused to conform to family expectations and was fiercely loyal to those she loved. HISTORICAL CONTEXT The backdrop to Joan’s story is Canada’s shameful post-war history (like many Western states) of treating unwed pregnant women as societal pariahs. “Their stories would not seem out of place in an episode of The Handmaid’s Tale: pregnant women shuttered away, violently restrained during childbirth, banned from looking at their babies — and, finally, coerced by social workers into signing adoption papers. More than a half-century after unmarried and largely non-consenting Canadian women were sent to maternity homes to give birth in relative secrecy, a report released by a [Canadian Government] Senate committee acknowledges a “disturbing chapter” in Canadian history, when the country’s adoption policies led to hundreds of thousands of unwed mothers being forced to give up their babies for adoption.” [Source: The Washington Post]

mat sheldon is a writer, producer, director. What matters? Cinematic drama. Smart genres. Veracity. Blood. Identity. Love. Memory and a vision of the future state. My birth mother, Joan, who gave everything.