Bev. Cooke has been writing for publication since 1989. Her first love is writing for young adults, and she has three YA books on the market: Keeper of the Light, a historical fiction about St. Macrina the Elder in 2006. Royal Monastic, a biography of Mother Alexander (Princess Ileana of Romania), also published by Conciliar came out in 2008. Feral, an edgy mainstream novel was released by Orca Book Publishers in 2008. Her latest publication is a departure from her regular work - an Akathist to St. Mary of Egypt, published by Alexander Press in 2010, which was written partly as a response to the seventy missing women from downtown Vancouver's east side, and as a plea to St. Mary of Egypt to pray for those women, and the men and women who live on the streets.
Bev. and her husband live in Victoria, BC where they enjoy two seasons: wet and road construction. They have two adult children, two cats and attend All Saints of Alaska parish.
Bev's very out of date webpage is bevcooke.ca and her blog is http://bevnalabbeyscriptorium.wordpress.com/. It's a little more up to date than the webpage. Bev is planning to blog more and update her webpage very soon, so keep checking back to them and be sure to "Like" her FB page: Bev. Cooke, writer.
In the USA, it’s Veterans Day, when those, both living and dead, who have served in the Armed Forces are honoured, but in my country, Canada, this day is our Remembrance Day, when we commemorate those who gave their lives in war to protect and preserve the innocent and the Read more…
Jet set—it’s an old fashioned, 1960s term for those who had money to burn and could just hop on a plane and travel wherever they wanted, whenever they wanted, and stay for however long they wanted. It implied a rootless, aimless, pleasure-driven existence that had no purpose except to amuse Read more…
Saucer is a Corgi, and anyone who know anything about Corgis knows that they’re herders. They’ve been helping herd flocks for almost as long as there have been flocks and herds. And Saucer knows it. So when he arrives at the monastery, the first thing he does is look for Read more…
If I asked you what Vespers and Harry Potter have in common, you might wonder if that isn’t a “Why is a raven like a writing desk?” kind of question. Why would the Orthodox faith have anything at all in common with speculative fiction? In a word: Doxacon. It’s the Read more…
The more you do it the harder it gets. That goes against everything we’re taught. If you want to be good at something, keep doing it, and it will get easier the more you do it. And when we’re talking about baseball, about piano, about dancing, about almost anything to Read more…
It’s both heartening and a source of pride that in a time when writers and editors are calling for more diverse books in children’s literature, an Orthodox writer and illustrator don’t just step up to the plate, they hit an out of the park home run. It’s also a delight Read more…
A woman in Holland, suffering from severe PTSD because of childhood sexual abuse is put to death – euthanized – because doctors decide her condition is incurable, in spite of intensive therapy making positive differences in her illness. In 2014, Belgium became the first country in the world to allow Read more…
It’s Holy Week, and my cat is dying. She is old, older than we had thought, and her kidneys are diseased. Other than alleviating her symptoms, there is nothing we can do. There is no cure for this. So we hydrate her, feed her, pet her, cuddle her, love her, Read more…
When I was a child, growing up in a secular home in Toronto, Ontario, I loved my Easter basket. It held that plastic fake grass in the pastel colours, and while my parents never indulged in the “Easter egg hunt” that’s such a solid tradition in the rest of the Read more…
She was born in Egypt, in about 466 AD, to Christian parents. At the age of 12, she ran away from home to Alexandria, where she lived on the street, giving away her favours and spinning flax to feed herself. She loved a good party and her endless capacity for Read more…
St. Basil the Great, St. Gregory the Theologian and St. John Chrysostom – the three Holy Hierarchs. We celebrate their feast day today, the 30th of January, but why? Each of them has their own day, when we celebrate their lives and contributions to our Orthodox faith. But what did Read more…
Sometimes there seems to be a saint who doesn’t really stand out, believe it or not. They are laborers in God’s vineyard, and their ‘claim to fame’ is for something other than what they’ve done. They just seem to have been in the right place at the right time. At Read more…