And so, one event remains! The Heart Tour and related workshops and events are coming to a close on Sunday, November 15th. My final event will be at the Unity Spiritual Centre for a full-day book fair with other local authors.
I will be doing Poetry on Demand as well as selling some new crafty bits I’ve been furiously making. There will be readings throughout the day, and everyone in attendance will be selling their fabulous books! The holidays are closing in, so perhaps you can get some early gift-purchasing completed!
Unity Bookstore presents:
Local Author Showcase
Come and explore the magic of storytelling at the Unity Spiritual Centre of Windsor!
This special literary gathering brings together 8- 11 talented local authors under one roof.
• Live Readings:
Hear authors bring their unique pages, poetry, and creative worlds to life with personal live readings.
• Book Sales & Signings:
Browse a diverse selection of works across various genres, meet the creators face-to-face, and get your new favorite books signed on the spot.
• Community Connection:
Discover fresh local voices, chat with fellow book lovers, and support independent regional writers and the Unity Bookstore.
Whether you are a dedicated reader, an art lover, or looking for something inspiring to add to your shelf, stop by to celebrate local creativity.
Event Details
• Date & Time: Sunday, November 15, 2026, at 11:30 AM
• Location: Unity Spiritual Centre of Windsor, 3640 Wells St., Windsor, ON
• Host: Tammy Maxine
For more information about this event, the best place to go is Facebook… I’m not on Facebook, but if you are, take a look here!
Back to the Heart Tour… Although some events were cancelled, the launch, readings, visits, interviews and workshops have all been wonderfully magical.
I was interviewed by my long-time friend Nancy Duffy over at Late Talks on Air. We had an intense and lively conversation! The interview will be posted soon! I’ll connect you to the link! Soon, I will be interviewed by the Scribes and Songsters team, and an email interview by Allison Snelgrove on The Story Behind the Story (@story_behind_the_story) will be posted soon as well!
IN OTHER NEWS…
Our son Jett had three films in this year’s Windsor International Film Festival. He had two shorts in the Local Shorts competition, and a film in the Mark Boscariol FlickFest competition. His short film, Fruitball, was a finalist for the Local Shorts competition while his other short film, Plants Get Lonely, screened too. Fruitball was also accepted to and screened at the Toronto Youth Shorts film festival.
The film he and his eager team made for the Flick Fest, Phoebe Forever, (if you click the link, you can watch the film!) took home 12 awards, including Best Director, Best Performance, Best Sound, Best Editing, and Best Film! I tell you, I was smiling so hard my scalp was hurting!! It was such a gift… honour… love-fest to witness Jett and his amazing filmmaker friends have so much fun and reap such lovely awards. This mama is outrageously proud.
I’m heading to Newfoundland for a week to visit my writing partner and dear friend Charis Cottter. Charis is an award-winning children’s book author! She just won the Newfoundland and Labrador Award for Children & Youth for her newest novel, The Mystery at the Haunted Dance Hall!
We will be spending time in a writing retreat as well as sipping tea and cozying up to the fire in her delightful house on the edge of the bay! I can’t wait! I’ll be traveling alone, which I’ll admit, I am feeling a bit anxious about. But, I’ll muster the courage come the travel date… and remind myself that this trip is a gift and time to read and write!
CREATIVE SHIFTS
The Writers’ Assembly
We’ve been running the workshop series The Writers’ Assembly for four years. I will be taking a break from this come 2027. If we plan anything, of course I’ll share the information, but I will no longer be leading this series.
My Newsletter
Come December, I will no longer be sending out my newsletter. It has been… I don’t even know, maybe fifteen years since I started the newsletter? Over the years, it has found a place in the landscape of our literary community which I am grateful for. I’ve garnered a robust subscriber list, so thank you for that! However, as I shift my creative goals and energy, this includes completing this part of my community engagement. My goal is to update this website, and use the blog to share thoughts, musings and information about my creative life… and any other news I’d like to share.
Social Media
I will be getting off Instagram as well. Not sure for how long, but I’ve been using it very minimally over the last weeks, and I can feel a direct impact of this slow-to-no engagement on my spirit and creative energy. I am reading more. I am sleeping better. I feel way less like I’m missing out/not good enough/not doing enough – even though I know that these psychological triggers are part of the algorithm – when I’m scrolling my knowing brain gets mushy and/or disappears and always end up feeling negative feelings. Yes, I know this means I will be missing out on things. I fully understand that social media is our current bookstore and event information centre… so give me grace if I miss something important. Alas, I hope that other avenues of communication will remain open, like good old fashioned talking, texting and telephone!
I have not posted on Facebook since 2021, but I do still use messenger and every once in awhile I peek in on family and friends when I can’t curb my curiosity.
I’d like my website to become the main hub for book sales, events and musings. I hope that I can add an active subscriber button as well as pull over my current subscribers. I know it’s doable… just have to figure out how!
There is much letting go in both getting off socials and changing my website. Especially for my website. I have been blogging and using this space for pretty much my entire writing and teaching career. It houses the most up-to-date events list and writing resume. There are close to 2,000 posts and thousands of images/videos. I will be able to save this history, but may not carry it all over. And this is a conscious choice.
Releasing The Writer
One of the creative patterns I’m attempting to shift is my attachment to my writing history. Be it a short story I wrote in grade four, a paper I wrote in university or a post I wrote about a book event… what does it mean to keep it? What does it mean to let it go? Who manages the feelings attached to the meanings of this ephemera? I do.
I went through bins and bins of writing I’ve been keeping since I was a child. I held each piece of scrawled-worded paper and thought: why am I keeping you? I realized it was because a) I felt like it was a part of me. Like an extra limb; b) I told myself that ‘one day’ I’d go back to it and use it for something; and c) it was proof of my trying… of my creativity… of the ‘writer’ in me who’s been alive since as long as I can remember.
The truth about these keeping-reasons is shifting. A) Everything I write is a part of me. But I can hold it in my heart as a lived experience whether I remember or not. The physical existence of the writing does not need to be kept anymore. I trust that it is part of me. I would like to lessen the weight on my body and spirit. That means letting go of an extra limb that doesn’t feel extra anymore, but rather switched residency into an existing organ. B) This ‘one day’ never came. If only to gaze at whimsically as I heaved the bins from one storage place to another… It’s been over forty years for some of the kept writing, and I never had a ‘one day’ where I opened the bins, took out the writing, and used it again. Now, I also have all my journals. These containers function to hold another description of my writing life, and I do go back often. The ‘one day’ for history-reaching through my journals happens all the time. Perhaps this is why, at this point in my life, I was able to let go of the bins of writing that never met its ‘one day.’ C) I feel so different about my writing identity. The ‘writer’ in me, I know and acknowledge with love, is but one part of many. And she’s tired. She’s aching. She doesn’t want to ‘try’ anymore. She doesn’t want to show up, to go out, to plan, to teach, to share, to build community. She would like to be quiet witness to other creative parts. She would like to not be the leader. I am giving her this opportunity. I have never done this… truly lived my creative life without the writer at the helm.
After the event on the 15th, I will do something that is a big deal for me. I will change my email signature. I will delete all the information except my name. My emails will end with… some form of closing, and my name. And. That’s. It. No logo for Gertrude’s Writing Room. No quote from a book I’ve written. No link to a website or an event. I will be, simply, Vanessa. In fact, this action has been sitting at the forefront of my mind for weeks as the final Heart Tour event nears. I have been releasing all these identifiers of ‘the writer Vanessa’ a little bit each day. I have been practising navigating the parts/voices that are challenging me to not make this shift. The parts that say: You can’t abandon the community! You can’t not teach! You can’t stop your newsletter! If you don’t offer your time and energy to the community, you are not in service to the craft. This is wrong. Everyone else manages it all. You’ve been managing it and doing a great job! Don’t stop! You can’t quit. Quitting is bad.
But there’s a miracle in birth here. Even as I type the words above, a stronger voice, a graceful part steps in and gathers all the guilt, the grief, the uncertainty, the admonishment into her ample bosom and holds it until it is quiet. It is time, she whispers, to do what you’ve never done before for your creative spirit. It is time to offer outcome a different relationship. It is time to release your self-worth from systemic measurements, social media tallies, and the narrative that if you don’t do what you’ve been doing you will not belong, you will not be seen, no one will know who you are.
It is fallacy. I belong to my body. To my spirit. To my love ability. I am seen and loved by my family and friends. I am not to be measure, compared, tallied. I want to create for the pure joy of creating. I don’t know when I will write. Perhaps I will sew or collage or read. Perhaps I will stare at the sky or kiss my dogs or toast sourdough and top it with fresh avocado, goat cheese and sprouts and eat with my eyes closed savouring each bite. Perhaps I will witch or walk or dance. I will live in the profound empowerment of ‘what if?’. What if I wake up and don’t filter every thought/action/reaction through the story of ‘You are a Writer’?
I am navigating the feelings that come with saying no thank you to things I’ve said yes to for decades. To the fallen faces. To the unmet expectations. To the confusion. To the judgements. To the very real possibility that many will not even notice my shifts. To very real possibility that the shift in my space in our literary community will have the most impact on me. The truth is that there will always be community – spaces and places and people who create and cultivate them – for writers here in Windsor. And, of course, the world wide web. I want to face, to embrace my choice to step aside, and still feel and be creative. Yes, cognitively I know that my creativity doesn’t change whether I’m leading or newsletter-ing or not – but I need to feel it in my body, in my spirit. To play with and pause for and punctuate other parts of who I am.
What about my YA novel? Good question. It waits patiently for my attention.
What about We the Mourners – it’s still so young and new? Indeed. I feel complete in my energy to shine a light on it in the same way. There will still be updates. There are still some results for contests/awards I am awaiting. Of course, if you’d like a copy, all you have to do is ask for one…
I am roaming the mysterious lands of I Don’t Know and What if? I am packing light.
With love, Vanessa.
