Synchronous Mentions

Oops. I realized that I had been wishing Americans a Happy Thanksgiving, but that is still a week away. 🤷🏻 

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Oddly enough, Sue and I were both mentioned in recent publications. I am being ungentlemanly and posting mine first because I had thought to post them separately. Then I decided to put them into one post.

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I was momentarily confused when I received this message in October. 

Oh John; I've just received the cover proof for the wildflower book, and your photo of flowering rush bareroot makes the cover absolutely fantastic! You get credit for the photo, along with thanks in the acknowledgements for letting me use it. I should have a couple of copies of the collection for you within the next two weeks!

The light began to dawn, helped by looking back at previous messages from Claudia, for it was more than two years ago that she had sent this.

Hello John; Someone in the group has helped me chase down your photo of a flowering rush. Did you have more than one photo of it? You took this on September 15, 2020. My memory of it is of a fuller head of florets.

I could not place the photo at first when she messaged me then, way back in June 2022, but we eventually figured out that I had actually taken it three years earlier, in June 2019.

I emailed her a high resolution version and proceeded to do what I do best: forget all about it.

A few days ago, a grateful Claudia brought two copies of her newly-published book of poems, Sweet Vinegars. I did get a photo credit inside, but that isn't important.

Claudia wanted to include the full photo, so she had the publisher
complete the photo on a flap that folded under.

Meanwhile, . . . Sue has also been mentioned in a publication, in her case the prestigious magazine, The Hockey News. (Look to the right, under Publisher's Note.)

How in the world did Sue get a mention in a hockey magazine, you might ask. Well, there is a backstory there too.

The publisher's mother was a neighbour of ours, and Sue became good friends with Ivy. Accordingly, she had met Graeme, the publisher, any number of times when he was visiting his mother. Since Ivy's passing, Sue has kept in some sort of loose touch with him. 

Graeme had taken a trip to Ukraine to check out how hockey was surviving in the conflict. If you can squint sufficiently read the article ↑ you will see that this documentary won in the Best Director Documentary Short category at the Cannes Festival in 2024. 

Sue sent him a short congratulatory note that Graeme cited in his Publisher's Note page. I have pasted that part separately, below, to make it a little easier to read. I hope it suffices.

What we have is a case of odd synchronicity: how we both got mentioned in other people's publications at approximately the same time in our generally modest and uneventful lives.