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Katie Bickell

Author, Instructor, Manuscript Consultant

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katiebickell

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Chloe’s first soccer game ⚽️ For those of yo

Chloe’s first soccer game ⚽️ For those of you without preteens at home, this look means “stop embarrassing me, Mom.”

Just kidding, all the looks mean that.

For all the truth about how hard mean girl dynamic

For all the truth about how hard mean girl dynamics can be (and are) at their age, the best part of being a girl is having that one girl beside you. #girlhood #thisisten #besties

20yrs old: “I sleep in my contact lenses all the

20yrs old: “I sleep in my contact lenses all the time! Just doesn’t affect me! Weird right?”
36yrs old: “I looked at my computer screen for 15 minutes before remembering to switch into glasses and now I can’t blink.”
#sandpapereyes #amwriting #blindasabat

🎶I want a home with a crowded table, and place

🎶I want a home with a crowded table, and place by the fire for everyone 🎶

Forgot to take photos of our “home with a crowded table” during a beautiful Easter dinner, but so loved stretching the holiday out over three days dyeing #pysanky with @lisasana, @liv.nich, Brynn, Caily, and Chloe. We used various teas along with beet powder and turmeric to make dye on Friday night and drew with the wax from tea light candles on Saturday and every night girls ran to and from our homes under the warm weekend’s full moon. The kids had such fun blowing the eggs that (thank goodness) we moms didn’t have to 😂

#easterphotodump #eastereggs #pinkmoon #springsnow #homemadedye #easter2022 #crowdedtable #plantyourgarden #romantisizeyourlife

A surprise gift from my 10 year old niece 🐣🌸

A surprise gift from my 10 year old niece 🐣🌸💞 @lisasana you make pretty sweet kids 🥰

Woke at 3am and couldn’t get back to sleep. Reor

Woke at 3am and couldn’t get back to sleep. Reorganized the living room as quietly as possible instead. Willow managed to sleep through it 🐾

I like my hair’s natural texture, but I don’t

I like my hair’s natural texture, but I don’t give it enough love. Usually I straighten or blow dry or curl it away before I have to do anything “professional” or “in public” or “normal” but the kids and I call it my witchy hair and when it’s like this I feel most me. Tonight I’m teaching a writing class and students will develop plots as wild as my waves. Death to styling tools (at least today anyway).

It is -12 degrees Celsius, and flurries in the nig

It is -12 degrees Celsius, and flurries in the night left snow on the ground. But F’s tomato seedlings have sprouted so, you know, hang in there… 🌱 ❄️ 🍅 🌸

My husband and I own a tiny ancient cabin just off

My husband and I own a tiny ancient cabin just off the shores Lesser Slave Lake. At the age of 22, he bought it off his great-grandparents, Lena & Fred (RIP), just a few months before he met me, and who’s to say they don’t visit us still? The cabin is two doors down and across the road from the house I grew up in and the house next door to that one, where my father now lives. A three minute bike ride takes us to Freddy’s grandparent’s home (Wayne and Marcella), and to his mom and dad (Gale and Fred), who live next door to them.

In this cabin, Freddy and I sleep behind a curtain that hangs in the middle of the living room. When he’s not here, Chloe shares my bed. Cailena was conceived in the same bedroom she now fills with art. In the spring, we fall asleep listening to the squeaks of little things between the walls and I make a mental note to bring the cat next time. In the summer we throw open all the windows and doors and seek coolness beneath poplar trees, although in last year’s heat wave the kids and the dog found most comfort with wet blankets on the cool, hard, uneven floor under their beds. There is only space for a fridge in the utility room, which is connected to the bathroom, so you have to knock on the door before grabbing the milk.

This cabin was our first love nest, and now that it’s no longer fit to rent out, it is ours to warm again with children and space heaters and hot water bottles and hand knit blankets (me) and stitched quilts (Gale and Marcella, and some of Lena’s, too). Candles and incense mask the faint smell of the skunk that feuded with Willow and lost the battle but won the war. We decorate the place with antiques unearthed in the outbuildings, and mud new cracks in the walls and ceiling each May.

This little space, chock-a-block with love and memories and ghosts and stains of what once was - a place where past/present/future feels to collide all at once - is one of my favourite places in the world, and is the setting of my next book, “Alskling,” a romantic, folkloric story that has so far proven to be my favourite tale to pen. I hope these photos show you not just a simple space, but the affection we have for it.

Oh hello, Julia Cameron. I keep hearing it’s pas

Oh hello, Julia Cameron. I keep hearing it’s past time we met.

Great question from a @pandemicuniversity “Less

Great question from a @pandemicuniversity “Less is More” Student: the difference between Perspective and Point of View. Here’s my condensed-for-instagram answer:

Perspective is the #voice that tells a story. The protagonist is tied to decisions the #author makes around language, symbols, and imagery when writing through their perspective. If your protag is a 5yr old and you are writing from his perspective, your word choices are limited to his experiences. If the protag sees something that is “sophisticated,” the author won’t be able to use that word unless the reader is given a believable reason why the child knows it. Instead, the author might describe the sophisticated thing as “fancy,” or “really grown up” to keep the childish perspective.

Usually stories are written in the perspective of the protag. This allows the reader to connect immediately, as they hear the voice throughout the whole #text. In a short story, this is important as each word should not only provide story details but deepen character development.

Sometimes a story is told from a different perspective. Perhaps the protag is a 5yr old, but the story is told through the perspective of the child’s adult self. Then, the author can use details that the narrator would have access to but the protag would not. An example that comes to mind is the film “A Christmas Story.” The protag is a child, but the perspective belongs to his adult self. Because the adult-self narrates, lines like “faster than a jackrabbit on a date” are appropriate even though the protag wouldn’t know what they meant.

A story’s perspective can also belong to a secondary #character. In “The Great Gatsby,” the protag is Gatsby but the #story is told through Carroway. Word choices and opinions reflect Carroway’s character – not Gatsby’s.

A story can also be told through a godlike perspective who might sound like the collective voice of society (See: “Pride and Prejudice,” “The Lottery”) or an objective witness who reports without opinion (“Hills Like White Elephants”).

(Point of view continued in comments)

Starting the day off pink: tulips and a rose incen

Starting the day off pink: tulips and a rose incense cone. #sweetstart #rose #tulips #spring #flowers #sunshine #incense #simplepleasures #morningvibes

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