There’s so much to report! For one thing, I am the new Arts and Culture Editor of ION Magazine. It’s the sweetest little alternative monthly glossy out of Vancouver. (It’s more like an art book than a mag, really.) They run 10 issues a year, and every issue I’ve seen has been great. Check it out online, but keep in mind that the print product is a million times more appealing than the online view. The next issue – my first issue – publishes in February.

In other news, I’m trying my hand at a regular column for another glossy monthly – Vancouver View Magazine. It’s a lifestyle publication filled with lots of health, work, home and money stories. Mostly advertorial content, which is a little lame, but I’m willing to try it out. My first column should appear in January. Woo hoo!

I’m also freelancing (keep your eyes peeled people), but to be honest, one of the things I’m most excited about is a wee gig as a book reader/reviewer for Elle Magazine (US Edition). They choose several people to read a few books for them each month, and we rate and write teeny things about those books. My stuff will be published in the spring, so watch for that as well. It’s a REALLY small thing, so I don’t want to make too big a deal out of it, but I’m pumped. Elle is one of my absolute favourite mags. I’m a big loser, I know.

Hmm … what else? Well, my Weekly Scoop [now defunct] print magazine story should be running nationally in the next couple of weeks. I’m also working on stuff for The Tyee. It’s crazy how busy things are getting.

Photo by Giulia Bertelli on Unsplash

Anyway, that’s enough professional news. Personally, things are looking good as well. Darrell and I are heading to Mexico for Christmas with the fam (his). I’ve got to go buy a bathing suit that doesn’t make me look like a tied sausage. Not looking forward to that aspect of the holiday, but what can you do? Once I’m on the sunshiny beach, I think it will be worth it.

I’ve put up my $5 tree and dime store decorations, so my casa is also looking holiday fab. Fabuloso. Fabtacular. Fabtaculous. Come for a drink (if you know where I live).

Word to Big Bird,
Jen

P.S. 2018-05-22: It’s amazing to reread this and realize how committed I was to hustling to rehab my reputation, find work, make money, and continue to be a journalist and writer, despite how depressed I felt. In my memory, I was unemployed for ages. In reality, I was getting work less than a month after leaving Dose. I don’t know how I managed to complete any of that work. In retrospect, it feels like all I did was drink wine and watch television. And I remember feeling at all times like an incredible fraud. At the same time, I clearly managed to impersonate a functioning human well enough to get all sorts of things done during this bleak period. It’s wild. There are two significant gaps here: one between my depression and the happy persona I was cultivating, and one between my in-the-toilet self-image and what I was objectively achieving.