The book was a labour of love.
Just in time for Valentine’s Day, North Vancouver poet Me-An Laceste is set for the publication of Feeling Red? Blush!, a collection of love letters.
In a bid to keep the dying art from becoming a lost art, Laceste canvassed friends, family, and anyone who’d ever committed flaming emotions to ink and pulp for a book intended to inspire the young generation.
“To say that I had the most wonderful time putting this together is an understatement,” Laceste wrote in an email. “It gave me an emotional high, complete with giggles and smiles.”
With one letter dating back to 1934 and another writer describing their parents meeting in Saskatchewan just before the Second World War, the book offers a glimpse of Canadian history.
Other letters give us insight into the psychology and melodrama of teenage love, as one young writer begs his beloved not to send him back a bracelet he gave her. “I’m not sending it, Jean, with my remotest thought of holding you. I send it only for remembrance and because the days we had are precious,” the boy writes.
Reading the letters brings out magical feelings, according to Laceste, who described her own experience of reading the submitted letters.
“I felt so in love, with no one in particular.”
