Hello dear readers,

I write to you from my office, unwelcome sunshine burning through my windows. It’s mid-October and Thanksgiving has passed, but still it feels like early September—and I’m having none of it!

But I can’t control the weather, and so I will focus on other things, like writing this hodge-podge list of what I’ve been up to lately:

• I finally finished the mulberry sweater, after putting it off in favour of another project¹—a striped orange and green scarf, that I may or may not have mentioned
• I also started another sweater, a dark purple thing made of a yarn called Nocturne, which is very spooky season in colour²
• I’m feeling a little sick, and so I made turkey soup for dinner today. C and I cooked the turkey for Thanksgiving this year, and so I made bone broth the day after dinner. I’d highly recommend trying this yourself!
• Before I made soup, I did a few hours of revising on the archive manuscript, which is actually beginning to read like a novel! Who would have thought
• I have a (secret) meeting tomorrow morning, after which I’m going to do a whole lot of revising, and not much else, which I’m very much looking forward to
• I just started reading Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil, and love it so far. I have no idea what it’s about³, so I’m looking forward to figuring that out
• I’m slowly painting our kitchen cabinets this beautiful brownish-orange, and loving it more each day. Today C and I took the doors off another section, and I’ll paint those and the base in the next week or so. I cannot wait to see what it looks like finished!
• We had a couple friends over last week to watch Over the Garden Wall, which I’ve now watched every year for ten years. This year also marks ten years of reading Shirley Jackson’s The Haunting of Hill House. It seems 2026 is the year of anniversaries
• My mom and I went to Fort Langley the other day, and I found a beautiful little cottage figurine which is frighteningly serendipitous. I can’t tell you why yet, but it has to do with the archive novel
• Because of this⁴, I have the urge to buy a new tarot deck, though I’m having a hard time finding one that fits what I’m looking for. I can’t quite put into words what that might be, but I know I’ll know it when I see it
• I’ve started writing more on Substack again and am enjoying it quite a bit! If you’re looking for fancier essays and other fun things (audio files of me reading my writing, copies of poetry collections), you can find me here.

That’s all from me today. I hope you’re well, and that you’re enjoying the season, wherever you are.

—Catherine

FOOTNOTES

¹ No, I didn’t finish the other project yet. I’ll get to it.

² I don’t know how you feel about this, but to me, dark purple is unequivocally a Halloween colour.

³ This was one of those titles I recognized when perusing the thrift store bookshelves, and I’m sure I read the synopsis before I bought it, but I can’t remember what it’s about. But I love going into a book blind, so this is ok.

⁴ Now that I found the cottage figurine, I’ve decided to find one item that represents each novel I’ve written. So, I’ve found the cottage for the archive novel, but now I need to find something for the witches. I think a tarot deck would suit best—you’ll see what I mean when you read it (in the near-ish future! I can’t wait to tell you about it when I can!).

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