Unravelling Perceptions Through Words
FBCW - Spotlight
I will be reading from my works at the Federation of BC Writers on-line Regional Spotlight on the Victoria Writers' Society. To attend this exciting event, you must register in advance here. Registration allows you to sign on to attend the event live and/or to view a recording of the event at a link which will be available for 90 days following.
Sept 23 | 7:00 p.m. PT
On-line
About
The Author
R. Paul Faubert has been a writer at heart since his teenage years in Hamilton, Ontario, when a high school English teacher secretly entered his short story
"The Tiger" into a national contest—and it won. From that moment on, he knew he’d write novels, even if life had other plans first.
After earning his degree at McMaster University, Paul headed west for graduate studies at the University of British Columbia’s School of Community and Regional Planning. He later settled in Victoria, B.C., where he built a distinguished 33-year career in the provincial civil service. Throughout those decades, he wrote daily—crafting everything from policy papers and political speeches to ministerial correspondence—quietly sharpening the tools he would later use to bring fiction to life.
In 2024, Paul received a Lifetime Achievement Award from the British Columbia Aviation Council, recognizing his significant contributions to the sector. Today, following retirement, he divides his time between writing novels and working with Strix, a Québec-based non-profit focused on advancing sustainable aviation technologies to help the world reach net-zero emissions.
Paul’s fiction explores themes of memory, perception, and the way time reframes truth. When he’s not writing or saving the planet, he’s a proud father basking in the glow of his daughter’s academic and athletic successes—a role he holds most dear.
Based in Victoria’s James Bay neighbourhood, Paul can often be found wandering the breakwater, strolling through Beacon Hill Park, or fuelling his ever-loyal caffeine habit at a local coffee shop.
Book Excerpts
Dreaming of The Walker
Dads are born in an instant, the moment their first son or daughter emerges to draw their first breath. The mother has been a mother for nine months already, carrying and nurturing and puking and talking softly. But the guy is just a guy wondering when and if the sex is ever going to get back to normal. Her water breaks and he becomes a mess of pacing and sweating and praying to a god he doesn’t believe in, holding her hand and telling her to breathe and thinking he’s playing a vital role in the birth. There’s an extra nurse in the delivery room just for him. And in a moment, in a split second, after ten or twenty or thirty-six hours of labour, he hears the frantic wail of a baby. And in that instant, a dad is born.
Image of R.Paul Faubert as an infant
highlighted in "The Dreaming of The Walker".
A Criminal Act of Heroism
Sammie studied the grave marker. She studied the etched veins of the maple leaf, the simple two lines of the cross. She looked to her right down the row of grave markers that seemed to stretch to eternity. Each marker was the same. Equality below the soft European grass, she thought. She rubbed her eyes, dispelling a tear before it had the chance to fall, fearing others might follow if one led the way. She leaned forward slightly in her seated position, reached behind her head and removed the elastic allowing her dark straight hair to spring from her usual ponytail and fall forward, curtaining her face. She took her sketchbook and her pencils from her backpack and sat cross-legged at the edge of the path. She began to draw the marker, the surroundings, the grass. There in the centre of her sketch, as if made more real with graphite, her name, his name.
Image inspired by the mystery and memory
explored in "A Criminal Act of Heroism".
My Portfolio
Welcome to my portfolio. Here you’ll find a selection of my work. Explore my projects to learn more about what I do.
A Criminal Act of Heroism
(Novel – Unpublished, Working Title)
A young girl visiting a Canadian military cemetery in Europe with her veteran grandfather finds the grave of a namesake. Struck by the dates on the gravestone, she realizes he was not much older than she is and becomes obsessed with finding out the story of his death.
Told in three acts—during her high school years, law school studies, and early legal career—A Criminal Act of Heroism explores the shifting nature of truth, the concept of heroism amidst the brutality of war, and how age and experience reshape our perception of history.
Dreaming of The Walker
(Novel – In Progress)
Coleman Falconer, Junior, is the younger son of an unremarkable father. His older brother, Denis, escaped the ignominy of the name Coleman due to the timely death of their grandfather just days before his birth. The brothers grew up with their father's "me and Walker" tales, stories which diminished over time. Tall tales of the far off adventures of two young men hoboing across western Canada became tired tales of exaggeration as the brothers aged. Yet Coleman retained a fascination with The Walker and, as an adult, set out many times to track him down. Coleman's story is about finding the truth in family myths, about finding hope in the twists life throws at you, about people doing the best they can with the cards they're dealt. It is about learning to love the knots and shorn branches we all find in our family trees.
Come Home
(Short Story – Published in Island Writer Magazine)
Come Home is an exploration of storytelling through dialogue. Presented through three interconnected present-day conversations, the story invites the reader to piece together both the current relationships and the fragmented history shared between the characters. The earlier events may be real or distorted by memory, leaving the reader to interpret where the truth lies.
Additional Writings
R. Paul Faubert has also written numerous short stories and poems, many of which explore memory, perception, and personal truth. These works may appear here from time to time as they are selected for publication or sharing.
