Diana Stevan

Last week, I published my Hearts and Pages newsletter through Substack about some heroes in our midst. One of them, two weeks ago at Vishyvanka Day, organized by the Comox Valley Ukrainian Society as part of an annual event held worldwide to celebrate Ukrainian culture expressed through beautifully embroidered shirts worn by men and women. There, I met a hero, Darrell McKay. A few months prior,…

Where would we be without hope? It’s what fuels our dreams and loves. But this past year has tested us all, lots of hope and frustration, with the war in Gaza and Ukraine (the birthplace of my parents), and AI threatening many livelihoods and our climate, which is already under duress. So much is out of our control. Though I grieve when I see bad news, I’m an optimist by nature, so I continue to…

Love and pain seem to go together. Taylor Swift and Patsy Cline hit the top of the music charts with songs about heartbreak. Everyone needs love and though we’ve heard these songs and stories about love going wrong, we keep searching for it anyway; we want to find the right one. It’s a natural thing to do. Here’s Patsy Cline, a famous singer from the 1950s, singing “I Fall to Pieces”, a song…

Since I just released Along Came A Gardener, in which I encourage anyone to go for therapy if they’re feeling emotionally stuck, I thought I’d write a blog post, giving 7 thoughts on what to look for in a therapist. I Used to Hire Therapists Back in the 1990s, as the B.C. Director for Corporate Health Consultants, a national EFAP firm, I hired counselors throughout B.C. to provide confidential…

Recently, in Vancouver, British Columbia, we became aware, once again, of the cracks in mental health services. They failed to help those in need and they failed to protect the public from harm. At a Filipino Street Festival in South Vancouver on Saturday, April 26, a mentally ill man drove his SUV into the crowd and killed 11 people and injured dozens more. Photo by Luke Jones on Unsplash What…

Hurrah, my book launch of Along Came A Gardener happened this past weekend. The book, based on my 25 years as a family therapist, is now online for sale on Amazon, and soon on other online retailers as well. And to celebrate, I posted a video on my youtube channel. It’s a short one of me reading from a chapter that includes the poem (written by a client) which gave me the idea and title for this…

With the coutdown to the book launch of Along Came a Gardener less than two months away, I share a few thoughts about what's inside and where I'm launching this book.

My Debut Book Launch It was a dark and stormy night in October, 2014, when I launched A Cry from the Deep, my debut novel, at the local library in Campbell River on Vancouver Island. It wasn’t a night to be out. The wind howled, as it does across Discovery Passage, the waves crashed on the shore, and the rain lashed my car as I drove to the library. A wicked night, but the room for my launch was…