Page pulse May 2026 newsletter

May 21, 2026

Volume 3, Issue 05

May, 2026

Welcome to the May Newsletter

Your gateway to stories, events, and creative community!

New & Noteworthy

We have updated the Subscribers' and FANS distribution lists. If this is your first newsletter, previous issues are available on our website.

Save the Date!

Writing Retreat: Tuesday, October 6 to Thursday, October 8, 2026

Location: Vancouver Island, BC

Theme: Writing at the Turning of the Year

A pause between seasons to listen more closely to your own work.

Cozy accommodations, group and solo writing time, sessions to inspire

and encourage your writing journey.

Program, Location, and Registration information to follow.

Subscribe to our newsletter to be the first to know the updates.

Calling All Storytellers: Submissions Now Open for

Monstrously Misguided

A Speculative Fiction Anthology from Filidh Publishing

Deadline: July 1, 2026

Filidh Publishing is now accepting short stories for Monstrously Misguided, an upcoming anthology

celebrating creatures, cryptids, and supernatural beings… but with a clever, unexpected spin.

We want tales in which monsters misbehave, evolve in strange ways, or rebel against their own myths. Funny, eerie, heartfelt, or bizarre. We’re here for it all.

Seeking: 1,500–6,000-word stories

Fantasy, Horror, Speculative, Weird, Dark Humour

Fresh takes on folklore & myth

Diverse voices + global monster traditions

Unexpected twists!

Not seeking: erotica, excessive gore, AI-generated fiction.

Send your story to: info@filidhbooks.com Dare to surprise us. More complete details on the website filidhbooks.com

In the Spotlight –

Author of the Month: Lawrence Nault

Lawrence Nault is a Canadian author and filmmaker whose stories trace the seams between nature, technology, and belonging. His YA eco-fantasy and speculative fiction often center on youth agency, environmental stewardship, and the moral puzzles of a networked world. He hosts the narrative podcast “Stone & Signal,” produces documentary projects about creativity and place, and designs open-source classroom resources that bridge fiction with citizen science. Ocean-focused threads in his work include the novel Fingerprints in the Water and the W.A.V.E. 4000 microplastics initiative. He lives in Alberta but writes with a coast-to-coast imagination, drawing on rivers, badlands, and the long memory of water. (photo credit: L. Nault)

Learn more about Lawrence and his work at https://lawrencenault.me/

Excerpt of the Month

THE LOST CONSTELLATIONS

by Lawrence Nault

(from A Whale of a Tale: Anthology of the Sea)

Guidance does not come from brightness, but from clarity. A clear signal can mean survival; a blurred one, death. These words of wisdom echoed in the genetic memory of every lanternfish, a reminder of the world around them, the sky above their world, and the light within them.

In the old waters, light was a language, and every flash had meaning. Light was their tongue, their scripture, their legacy. Their subtle flashes, rhythms, and hues carried meaning. A beacon of invitation to some. A warning to others. And a song of temptation that called to its prey. They wore it like a cloak of invisibility as their predators swam below them, unable to see their glowing topsides. In the darkness of the ocean waters, the predators above saw only the false shimmer of stars scattered on the surface, never the truth beneath.

That is what the stories, woven into them like a thread that held every scale to them like an almost seamless coat of liquid starlight, told them. But a memory, embedded in your body, or just your mind, was still just a memory. The tale storytellers wove to give the young direction, even in these times when it meant little.

Yet memory can blur as surely as light. What the ancestors had passed down as scripture was, in truth, little more than fable now. Myths of protection, restraint, survival. Once, the ocean had listened; now, its signals were noise.

There were no points of light in the ocean waters now. It was blurred and distorted. All dangerous, and dangerous to all. If the myths of the ancestors were to be told today, they would not speak of light, but of darkness. A darkness their light could not shine through. A darkness that was given life in the minds of man and left to wash into the oceans. This was a truth that weighed heavily on Solas. As he swam among his kin, he carried not just their bodies in motion, but the burden of their fading legacy. But myths are inherited, embodied in every ocean creature, and those who would inherit this myth had not yet felt the salt of the water on their skin. For Solas, the myth was a fever dream.

The reality brushed against his scales as he led the nightly migration. They didn’t move fast, until they did, and like a hive mind shifted and darted, dancing through the water with the sharp turns and twists of a Scottish sword dancer. They moved with such preciseness that millions looked like one. A massive creature to be feared by all that set their eyes on it.

As the moon called to the ocean the curtains opened and the oceanic ballet took stage, the largest migration on Earth, as creatures moved from the ocean depths towards the surface. Solas led the lanternfish as the Corps de Ballet, their bioluminescent photophores worn like sequined costumes, dancing in perfect synchronization through the water column. The zooplankton played the background ensemble, providing the atmospheric foundations that everything builds on. Dinoflagellates and cyanobacteria made the perfect lighting crew, their bioluminescence creating stage effects. Their sparkles, glowing trails, and ethereal backdrop illuminated the entire performance.

Large predatory fish took on the role of principal dancers. Dramatic soloists who swept through the corps, executing bold leaps and powerful movements. And of course, there were the character dancers, the copepods, filling the quirky, essential supporting roles. They were small, but crucial to the ballet’s rhythm and flow. Amongst them all the children’s chorus, the krill, still stood out. Young, energetic performers that added charm and vulnerability to the production.

There were times when Greenland sharks joined the cast of the largest migration on Earth. Solas could remember their words as they narrated the ballet. Through age or wisdom, they were prone to narrative digression, speaking of the ballets before the pollution. They would talk about the feel of water, and the pinpoints of light like in the skies above their realm. Solas wished that he had been part of those performances.

As he led the lanternfish that kilometre higher in the ocean, it was not the sensations of the saltwater or temperature that he felt, but something offensive-feeling and unseen. The higher he swam, the worse it was. He could see no pinpoints of light, only the organic light of ocean creatures reflected in a haze off the unseen bits of microplastics, the unnatural substance that felt so offensive to his skin.

Solas foraged, his food dancing just out of reach, his lure of light reflecting above him on the tiny particles that were suspended in the water, beckoning to his prey to feast on it. And his prey did, ingesting the plastics not because of taste or scent, but because of a signal that plastic stole like a camera steals an image.

Others in the migration were less selective, their filters picking up all the microparticles. Solas watched them, many looking like life was leaving them, their filters and stomachs filled with microplastics that gave them no nutrition, only pain and suffering. The lucky ones, too weak to escape their predators, had their lives taken quickly, but that would not be the fate of those that consumed them. The tragedy was not their death but confusion, as the microplastics turned the language of light into a trap.

Solas turned his gaze upwards to the surface that reflected the sky. In the spaces between the floating flotsam man abandoned to the sea, he caught glimpses of that sky. It wasn’t the sky of his ancestors. Man had dumped thousands of machines into their sky just as they dumped their garbage into the oceans. Solas could hardly tell the difference between satellite and star through the haze of lights from the nearby land.

“Do they know what they have lost?” Solas asked himself. “Their sailors once read the stars like we read the subtle light patterns of the deep. Both are becoming illegible. We are all getting lost. Their light pollution drowns out their connection to the heavens just as their microplastics drowns out our connection to community.”

Solas was pulled from his thoughts as a familiar shape caught his eye. His reaction was immediate, signalling to his kin, and all around that they were in danger. A wave of light radiated back into the heart of the school of lanternfish, but only confusion followed. The signal that in the lower depths would have seen the school divide like the Red Sea parted for Moses and then come back together as the predator passed. In this layer of water, the signal was corrupted and looked like a streetlight in the fog amongst all the microplastics.

What followed was a swath of death, as though a key supporting dancer in their ballet slipped and fell, and those balanced in arabesques toppled like dominoes. As if by the cue of the ballet’s director, the entire school’s bioluminescence dimmed. Some would say the dimming lights were a natural response to protect themselves. Solas knew it was the lanternfish moment for mourning, acknowledging the loss of friends and family, and concealing the red tinge of the waters that marked their passing.

It was the natural cycle of the ocean, but there was nothing natural about it. It was death by despoiling. These microplastics weren’t floating beneath the surface because the creatures of the ocean asked for them. The garbage that floated on the surface in huge patches was not the nutrients of life that the ocean wished to trap in its grip to give sustenance to the life within it. They were the curse of those who did not live in the waters and could or would not understand the enormity of their ignorance.

Some would have died that night, their death the gift of life to others. But those who died among the deceptive glow of the microplastics, had been taken before their time. There was a cost for that, the toll charged to Mother Ocean.

As the pull of the moon ebbed, the great migration played again, and the ballet ensemble returned to the ocean depths. Solas did not lead in this performance, falling to the back to observe. He felt energized as the plastics became less dense, but he did not feel himself. He fell back further from his school, watching in wonder as the school gave wide berth to a leatherback turtle that swam amongst them. He was a large, beautiful, and ancient creature, but he, too, was marked by the ignorance of humans. He dragged behind netting that he could not shed, a limb bound so tight it now hung dead.

Solas swam close by. “May the Ocean Mother grant you swift passage, free from the pain of man, ancient one.”

The leatherback understood the light signals of Solas. At this depth, they were sharp and clear. He nodded in acknowledgement but chose not to tell Solas that his death may come first. The lanternfish had let himself become separated from his school, and the turtle could see by the erratic swimming pattern that Solas’ light would soon be extinguished.

“Travel with me, my friend,” offered the leatherback. “Your school has moved on, and I could use the companionship.”

(to read the rest, purchase A Whale of a Tale: Anthology of the Sea here)

Monthly Friendly Authors Networking Socials (F.A.N.S.)

Our next meeting will be Saturday, June 13, 2026, 10:30 AM – 12:30 PM

Quality Foods, the Upper level café, regular seating area

in Eagle Creek Mall on Helmcken Road in View Royal.

info@filidhbooks.com

(https://www.facebook.com/groups/295883593397579)

Just the Deets…

The May FANS meeting had eight of us in the smaller boardroom, as they double-booked the larger one, again. Most of the discussion was about the processes of publication and marketing, and the influx of scams. Attendees shared updates on works in progress, sales successes at recent events and one-on-one encounters, ways to get reader feedback, and the high cost of trying to stand out in a world full of authors. The group also exchanged resources and opportunities, including discussion of reader apps and changes in publication processes. Upcoming and recurring events were highlighted, including the Fernwood Catwalk, Moss Street Market, Pride in the Park, Word Vancouver, and a writers’ retreat scheduled for October 6–8.

Explore These Literary Events

I. Vancouver Writers Fest - https://writersfest.bc.ca

II. Gibsons Art and Words Festival 2025 - https://gibsonspublicmarket.com/event/art-words-festival-2024-august-22-25/

III. Surrey International Writers Conference - https://www.siwc.ca

IV. Victoria Festival of Authors - https://victoriafestivalofauthors.ca

V. Federation of BC Writers - https://www.bcwriters.ca

VI. Canadian Authors Association - https://canadianauthors.org

VII. Victoria Writers’ Society – http://victoriawriters.ca

VIII. Pride In The Word - https://victoriapridesociety.org/pride-2024/literary/

IX. Denman Island Readers and Writers Festival - https://denmanislandwritersfestival.com/festival-2025/

X. Elephant Mountain Lit Fest – Nelson, BC - https://www.emlfestival.com

XI. Word Vancouver - https://www.wordvancouver.ca