Sheilla Jones

I write, therefore I am.

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Sheilla Jones is an award-winning Canadian journalist with an advanced degree in theoretical physics. She has been reviewing books on Indigenous issues, popular science and Canadian politics since the beginning of this century, including for the Winnipeg Free Press, The Globe and Mail and the Literary Review of Canada.

Sheilla is co-chair, Modernized Annuity Working Goup, Winnipeg

She is also chief editor, Woolly Mammoth Publishing, Winnipeg.

Left: Sheilla holds a rare 30th Anniversary Edition of Sir Isaac Newton's Principia Mathematica, Rare Books Collection, Institute of Astronomy , University of Cambridge, 2000.

The latest:

"Mrs. Booth's Most Unusual Enquiry Bureau", by Sheilla Jones and Jim Burns

Ripperologist, Issue 167, June 2020, pp 22-26

Mrs. Booth’s Enquiry Bureau was a most unusual detective agency, born out of the desperate search for girls seduced or forced into prostitution in London slums, and grew to become arguably the largest detective agency in Victorian London. Read more...

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Let the People Speak: Oppression in a time of reconciliation

By Sheilla Jones

Foreword by Sheila North

Sheila North and Sheilla Jones sign books for the audience at the launch of Let the People Speak, September 19, 2019 at McNally Robinson Booksellers in Winnipeg.

Read Sheilla's recent book reviews:

Distorted Descent: White Claims to Indigenous Identity, by Darryl Leroux, Winnipeg Free Press, February 8, 2020
From Where I Stand: Rebuilding Indigenous Nations for a Stronger Future, by Jody Wilson-Raybould, Winnipeg Free Press, October 19, 2019
No Surrender: The land remains Indigenous, by Sheldon Krasowski, Foreword by Winona Wheeler, Winnipeg Free Press, March 9, 2019

The Spinning Magnet: The Force That Created the Modern World — and Could Destroy It, by Alanna Mitchell, Winnipeg Free Press, March 3, 2018

Mysteries

Did you know that the Salvation Army operated one of the largest private detective agencies in London in the 1890s? And that the SA has a little-known link to Jack the Ripper?

Florence Soper Booth married into the Salvation Army Booth family in 1882 and, at age 22, was promptly assigned to develop and manage the Women’s Social Work branch of the Army. That included the creation of the Enquiry Bureau in 1885, which became a professional detective agency in 1888.

"Mrs. Booth's Most Unusual Enquiry Bureau", by Sheilla Jones and Jim Burns is featured in the June 2020 issue of Ripperologist, Issue 167.

Learn more about Mrs. Booth's Bureau of Enquiry, opening in 1885 in Hackney, London.

Creating a mystery series

By Sheilla Jones

The idea for the “Blood & Fire” murder mystery series was born of a collision of ideas: my on-going search for a mystery premise that is new and fresh, and husband Jim’s discovery that his great-great grandmother was the first matron of the Salvation Army’s Rescue Home for fallen women in 1896 Helena, Montana. It was the proverbial “aha!” moment. What better place for a strong female “detective” than managing a house full of prostitutes, drunks and outlaws... Read more

Curious facts about the Salvation Army:

Much of what people know about the colourful history of the Salvation Army is shaped by George Bernard Shaw’s 1905 play Major Barbara and the 1941 movie based on that play, or by the 1983 British television sit-com Hallelujah! starring the inimitable Thora Hird. But there is so much more.

Did you know...

The legal right for citizens to hold street parades is due to the SA. Opponents of the SA went to absurd lengths to use the long-standing Highways Act as grounds to arrest Salvationists for obstructing the streets. After a period of mass arrests and vicious attacks... Read more

DOCUMENTARY

Infinite Possibilities:

The Science of Parallel Universes

By Sheilla Jones, with Dwight Vincent

CBC Ideas, 2002

Do we live in one of an infinite number of universes? Quantum mechanics seems to say that we do, but it’s not an easy to get a handle on a such a big idea. Sheilla Jones gives it a shot, along with cosmologists Dwight Vincent, Max Tegmark, David Deutsch and Bryce DeWitt. Run time: 55 min.