Author, speaker, former editor of Chatelaine magazine
| Topics: Arts & Entertainment |
| Interview Date: April-17-2012 |
| Extraordinary Insights: “Know your greatest gift, that quality of yours that distinguishes you from everybody else, and buff it to a shine. With each new job or assignment, ask yourself: 'how I am going to apply my defining talent?'” |
Audio-only version:
Rona Maynard served as Editor of Chatelaine through a decade of growth and innovation in which she attracted a new generation of readers to Canada's number one magazine for women. She became renowned for the honesty of her editorials. Under her leadership, Chatelaine met every benchmark of success and won international honours.
Rona’s achievements are rooted in her personal journey out of shyness and chronic depression. For years she struggled to reconcile the pressures of her career with her other roles as mother, wife, daughter and friend. She had to learn to live each day as if it mattered. She never set out to change people’s lives, but that is what began to happen when she wrote from the heart about changing her own life.
An award-winning journalist, Rona has contributed hundreds of articles to national magazines. She stepped down from the helm of Chatelaine to write the memoir her readers had been asking for: My Mother's Daughter, which Alice Munro has called "wonderfully honest and enthralling." Her conversation with women continues at her website, www.ronamaynard.com, one of More magazine's 10 favourite blogs by women over 40. In her popular memoir workshops, she leads women to the heart of their own stories.
Rona’s honours include a Woman of Distinction Award from the YWCA of Metropolitan Toronto, a Woman of Action Award from the Israel Cancer Research Fund, a Media Award from the Canadian Nurses Association and a National Champion of Mental Health Award from the Canadian Alliance on Mental Illness and Mental Health. She volunteers for the Canadian Women's Foundation and was a founding member of the advisory board for Our Sisters’ Place, which assists women suffering from postpartum depression and other emotional disorders.
Rona counts her long marriage (more than 40 years) among her greatest achievements. She has a son and two grandsons.