Anne Shirley, the orphan girl who is the titular character in Anne of Green Gables, is known and loved by many readers worldwide, Judith Graves included. During Graves’s early years in Summerside, P.E.I., Anne of Green Gables was a fixture of her childhood. But it wasn’t until she was in junior high, when the 1980s television miniseries aired, that Graves’s initial draw to Anne transformed into a kinship. “That’s when you’re trying to find yourself,” says Graves. “Being in a military family, we moved a lot. I was always the new girl, I always felt out of place and like I didn’t belong. That’s when I really resonated with Anne.”

When Graves learned Halle Bailey would be playing Ariel in The Little Mermaid and Kelsey Verzotti was cast as Anne in the Charlottetown production of Anne of Green Gables: The Musical, she remembers thinking how wonderful it was. “A seed was planted that Anne could be anybody,” Graves recalls. “If that were the case, what would happen?”

With 2024 marking the 150th anniversary of Lucy Maud Montgomery’s birth and the 30th anniversary of Acorn Press, Prince Edward Island’s longest-running traditional publishing house, Graves pitched the idea for The ANNEthology to Terrilee Bulger, owner of Acorn, who told her to go for it.

Graves, an award-winning author, illustrator, and screenwriter, was off and running. She knew she wanted to include writers from the P.E.I. and writers from the Maritimes, but branching out was equally important. Natasha Deen (The Signs and Wonders of Tuna Rashad), one of the 10 contributors to the anthology, was integral in connecting Graves with fellow contributors Paul Coccia, Matthew Dawkins, and Susie Moloney. Graves’s pitch was simple: the character had to be named Anne; there had to be a reference to red hair; the character had to be adopted, but that could be the backstory; and the story had to tie back to themes in the original Anne of Green Gables, of home, belonging, and displacement. From there, contributors could take Anne anywhere they wanted.

That’s precisely what they did. From genre to gender, from time period to race, the collection truly reimagines Anne. “I was absolutely gobsmacked at how cool the stories were,” says Graves. “This isn’t a horror anthology, it’s not a romance anthology, it’s not a western anthology. It’s going to require [the reader] to cleanse their palate after each story. The idea is not that Anne is going to be travelling any specific route. The idea is to push her past the cannon, past L.M. Montgomery, and into new places to be welcoming and to be representative of kids in Canada.”

Graves took on dual roles for The ANNEthology (out June 11), acting as both editor and contributor. The former allowed her to be “a guide, a collaborator, and a supporter of the authors,” while the latter allowed Graves to fulfill a lifelong dream of celebrating Anne – for a second time. Her short story entitled “Anne” was written in 2013 as a submission to a contest run by the Surrey International Writers’ Conference, where it won in the Writing for Young People category, and now it finds a home in The ANNEthology.  

Graves knows that not every story is going to call out equally to every reader. She encourages readers of The ANNEthology to move beyond that, to the idea of family, the idea of finding yourself, the idea of home. “Anne represents that,” says Graves. “But Anne doesn’t have to be a white girl with red hair. She can be anybody.”