Cheers

Not a bad way to start the month.

My October 1st day trip to Vancouver felt like a fever dream by that evening. (Which may have had something to do with getting up at 3:30 in the morning!) Although I made the trek from Victoria across the strait for an appointment, there was time for some fun including stops at Gucci, The Little Cafe on Robson, Hello Kitty Cafe, and wrapping things up at Notch8 Restaurant & Bar in the Fairmont Hotel Vancouver. (The pink cocktail pictured above, from the “Pre-Prohibition” menu, is called the Lavender Corpse Reviver, and it packs more of a punch than I realized.) What a day! See more photos

Also, this voyage included four different modes of transportation: car, ferry, bus, and SkyTrain. Gotta get the most out of the experience, right?

October’s been a time for celebrating and remembering: the little things, maybe some bigger things, the people in our lives, the people who leave us too soon. But it’s also been a time of doubt and rejection. These are the ups and downs of being a creative, (as you’ll see from the rest of the October recap).

Nostalgia

My poem “Neighbourhood Revisited” was the October 2 feature poem on The Daily Verse! Thank you to The Wise Owl magazine for selecting my work to be part of the Nostalgia theme.

Tunes

Did you know there’s a YouTube playlist, carefully curated with a song for each chapter, for Provenance Unknown? (It’s been a while since I shared this tidbit and I know I have some new followers and readers 😃.)

Ooh La La

How did I get so lucky as to receive this Frenchy gift this month? 🤩 An indulgent rainbow of macarons from Ladurée is the perfect end to a week!

Writer Humour (But Also, Truth)

Speaking of Writer Challenges

On a serious note, I had a particularly tough week all around in mid-October, including on the writing/publishing front, but I found inspiration in spades at the Art Gallery of Greater Victoria, including works by Victoria, British Columbia artists Emily Carr and Sophie Pemberton, the Group of Seven (Lawren S. Harris, Tom Thomson), James Wilson Morrice, Clarence Gagnon, Vera Weatherbie, Mary Hamilton, Joe Plaskett, Mabel May, and Thomas Sidney Cooper, plus a visit to the Asian Art gallery. Will definitely be back! ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Watch a short reel about my visit

This painting by Sophie Pemberton, called “Rejection”, is a reassuring reminder that even the greats struggled.

I love this blurb about it on the Art Gallery of Greater Victoria interpretive panel:

“Victoria-born artist Sophie Pemberton (1869 – 1959) is recognized today as the first artist from British Columbia to receive international attention and a trailblazer among Canadian women artists. She had works accepted and hung in highly competitive English and European exhibitions as a young woman in the 1890s, including the Paris Salon and the Royal Academy in London. However her efforts were not always met with success. One of the paintings shown here, Rejected, depicts the artist sitting in her own home, slumped in a chair, looking dejectedly towards a painting that had been submitted to, and rejected from, the 1898 annual exhibition of the Royal Academy in London. This is an extremely important and personal work by the artist and in terms of subject, is completely unique within Canadian art history.”

And, happily, a day or two after my visit, my creativity decided to reappear. After a long creative drought, I’m suddenly about halfway through writing chapter two of my next novel. This feels wild after being on the verge of quitting writing altogether. All this to say, there’s hope! (That’s something worth raising a glass to.)

Les Bouquinistes — Halloween Edition

Did you know that Victoria is considered one of Canada’s most haunted cities?

I just finished reading this booklet published by the Old Cemeteries Society of Victoria, and it’s a great primer on some of the area’s spooky tales. (There are plenty more stories to discover!)

👻 👻 👻

If you’re in the Victoria area, the Society offers Walking History Tours every Sunday afternoon at 2 pm (except January — click here for current schedule); Ghost Walks in October; and field trips, workshops, and lectures.

For more local, ghosty reads for Halloween, give these a go:

• Victoria’s Most Haunted, by Ian Gibbs
• Haunted History BC’s magazine series, “Evenings & Avenues – Hauntings in the Outskirts”

As always, thanks for reading. Merci!

Sonia