In Writing a Life, Mary Rubio and Elizabeth Waterston look at the work of the prolific Canadian author Lucy Maud Montgomery, paying particular attention to her children's fiction and the secret journal that she began in 1889 and maintained until her death in 1942. Montgomery is revealed as a “subversive author” who “built secret messages of rebellion and resistance against authority (especially patriarchal authority) into her superficially sunny stories.” Writing a Life is an engaging portrayal of the covert passion and rebellion of a woman known to the public as a good wife, loving mother, and popular author.