Wetaskwin’s Svea Beson found her love of storytelling as a toddler. Long before she could read and write, she would grip pencils in her hand to draw for her grandfather, using images to tell tales. Once the words did come, Beson switched to written stories.
Growing up in Newfoundland, Beson spent hours scribbling stories across the giant rolls of paper her grandfather would bring home from his job at the local pulp and paper mill.
Having left school at just 10 years old to support his family, Beson’s grandfather was never taught to read, but that did not stop him from fostering Beson’s creativity and love of literature.
“By the time I knew how to read, which I was probably five years old, and I could read, that’s when we kind of learned to read together. Until I was about 11, I would read a newspaper to him every day. I would sit in his lap, and we would read it together,” said Beson.
Now, Beson works at the Wetaskiwin Public Library, and it is clear that her grandfather’s influence stuck around. After years of writing short stories, Beson published her first novel in May, which is now available for purchase on Amazon.
Titled Magic Mushrooms and Other Hallucinations, the book follows best friends Laela and Sally as they experience the messy ups and downs of teenage life in 1980s Newfoundland. The nostalgic novel transports readers back to life growing up in the 1980s, as the girls learn to navigate family, boys, peer pressure and, yes, magic mushrooms.
While the story is a work of fiction, the people and places in the novel are inspired by Beson’s time growing up in Virginia Park, a neighbourhood in St. John’s, N.L.
“Most everything else is fiction, but it is based on real people and the good parts of the real people and the bad parts of the real people,” she said.
For roughly a decade, the shenanigans of Laela and Sally were limited to short stories written for those in Beson’s inner circle. After finishing a strong collection of stories, Beson decided it was time to work towards her goal of someday publishing a book.
“Once I had 10 stories, I thought, ‘You know what, I wouldn’t have to do very much to make it into a novel,’” she said.
“I have a bucket list, and on my bucket list was to publish one book. And I just decided to do it on my own.”
After three years of edits and carefully weaving together Laela and Sally’s story, the novel was ready for publication.
Beson says she hopes the story will bring readers back to their childhood and pique interest in Newfoundland.
“If anybody who doesn’t live in Newfoundland reads it, even if they only say, ‘Wow, what a great friendship,’ that will make me happy; but, if it gives them any desire to go to Newfoundland or see any of the places, or ever think, ‘I want to meet these people,’ that’s (great),” she said.
“The part that is thrilling is people who I grew up with, people who I don’t even know who’ve read it and said, ‘You know, this is so funny. It’s so good. I’m either laughing or crying.’ And as a writer, that’s what you want. You want someone to feel something.”
With Magic Mushrooms and Other Hallucinations, released only a few months ago, Beson says she is already working on her next novel, a family drama set in St. John’s N.L.
“I’m probably about a third of the way through, and it has a lot of shocking things in it.”