Vicki Mcleod's Blog
January 2, 2024

Why Goal Setting Doesn’t Work

Goals can't just matter on the surface. We need goals that offer a compelling vision of the future. What is the big difference you're trying to make in the world?  Or are you making in your workplace, family life or business?
November 29, 2023

Book Review: Ukrainian Portraits, Diaries from the Border

At the outbreak of Russia’s attack on Ukraine in February 2022, Marina Sonkina decided to travel to Europe to assist Ukrainians fleeing the carnage through the Ukrainian-Polish border at Korczowa. As her book unfolds, we meet an array of refugees, just some of the many hundreds Sonkina encountered as a volunteer at the border refugee centre.
November 7, 2022
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What Are You Doing Here wins second prize in PRISM International 2022 CNF contest

Ivan Coyote called it "powerful and poetic". In this piece I grapple with a question that haunted my childhood: What are you doing here? Honoured to have this work acknowledged by PRISM International magazine.
July 9, 2022
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All My Love, Alex: Second Prize Winner EVENT Literary Magazine

"In 1961 my mother committed my father to Crease Clinic, at what was then known as Essondale, the Hospital for the Mind. This was a euphemistic title for what is usually called a mental institution or lunatic asylum." This is the opening from All My Love, Alex, the second-prize winner in Event Poetry and Prose Magazine's 2021 Creative Non Fiction contest.
March 7, 2022

Journalling for Well-Being

Journalling offers us a simple and effective way to deepen our own processes. The relationship we have with ourselves is the one that drives and dictates the relationships we build with others and with the natural world we inhabit. We can learn, grow, expand, express and discover our deeper selves through the simple daily practice of putting pen to paper. In this post (and video) I serve up my best tips for journalling as a tool for wellbeing. 
January 25, 2022

Journalling as a Leadership Tool: Interview with Kathy Archer

Recently, I was invited to be a guest on the Surviving to Thriving podcast with Kathy Archer of Silver River Coaching. We took a deep dive into the many ways journalling can be used as a tool for leaders. Much of what we discussed can be applied to anyone in any walk of life. We offer three key insights, but honestly we cover so much more!
January 16, 2022
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Long Listed for the BC-Yukon Creative Nonfiction Prize

Leave With What You Came With is long listed for the BC Federation of Writers 2021 Literary Contest in the Creative Nonfiction category. This work is essentially a braided essay. It is a glimpse into the story of my father's institutionalization in a mental hospital in 1961.
January 5, 2022
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Passages: A Prose Poem

How do you tell time? What signals mark the significant passages in our lives? Weather, nature, the aging body. Time is its own poetry.
December 24, 2021

Awakening From a Strange Dream

In The Overstory (Penguin Random House 2019), Dory, one of Richard Powers’ characters, watches the twin towers fall on 9/11. She thinks, Finally, the whole strange […]