A Meadow in Saanich (part 2) by Valerie Albemarle
Born on the wrong side of the iron curtain in Soviet Russia, Valerie Albemarle discovered a different universe in England where she spent five years of her childhood. With a diplomat and writer father, and a professor of Farsi mother, both firm believers in the immersion method of learning a foreign language, at the age of five she found herself immersed in a Church of England primary school where she began to understand and speak English, and to keep down the dreadfully unfamiliar lunches, out of sheer need to survive. Growing up with two languages and two great literary traditions has shaped her stereoscopic vision of the world and her style as a writer: Russian lyricism blended with English refusal to take her characters too seriously.
Upon graduating from the University of Guelph in 2008 Valerie settled in Squamish, BC to work as an associate veterinarian and later as a locum. In 2010 she launched a blog, Animal Doctor in Transition, reflecting on the practice of veterinary medicine and on what we can and should learn from animals. She made her literary debut in 2011 with the short story "How to Resuscitate Roses" published in the anthology Canadian Voices volume II, and went on to write two novella-length stories which don’t fit into journals and therefore ended up on Kindle. "Michael," a magical realism story on the nature of time and deadlines, earned five stars from Reader’s Favorite. In "Killer of a Mind" the instinct for survival leads to an unusual case of revenge: a man threatens his enemy's sanity rather than his life. Her first novel "Reticence" is a meditative and lighthearted story built around the Russian immigrant experience in Canada. She is currently working on two novels in the magical realism key, both drawing on her Russian roots and one also exploring the crippling effects of war on human nature. She writes a regular column in the West Coast Veterinarian magazine on issues affecting wildlife, and is working to bring public attention to the plight of moose trapped in abandoned telegraph wire in the wilderness of BC.
You can follow her blog at animaldoc-transitions.blogspot.com/
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"Riptide" and "This House" Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)
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