This morning, my wife Karli and I experienced a rare crossover in our sleeping schedules: she woke up early and I slept in a bit, which resulted in both of us being awake at 8:00 AM on a Sunday morning. We decided that we should celebrate this unexpected overlap by going out for breakfast, and strolled down Broadway to the Sunshine Diner, one of Vancouver's iconic breakfast spots.
We found a pleasant table in the shade, enjoyed a somewhat expensive breakfast (welcome to the 2022 economy, even eggs are not cheap right now), settled the bill, and started our walk home.
As we left the restaurant and headed past the rest of the outdoor dining, I unexpectedly caught sight of what appeared to be a familiar face.
Photography is funny, taking someone's picture can often embed them quite solidly in your memory, and in this case I was certain that I'd photographed the person in question eight years ago at a Vancouver Writer's Fest event, featuring cyberpunk legend William Gibson, and two newcomers on the scene, fantasy authors A. M. Dellamonica and Sebastien de Castell, the second of whom was apparently discussing toast options with a waitress at the restaurant we'd just left.
I waited until we'd walked a discreet distance along Broadway, and then excitedly told Karli of my sighting. She urged me to go back and talk to him, but I felt reluctant to accost someone trying to have a quiet breakfast on the off chance that I had correctly recognized them from an eight-year-old memory, and convinced her that we should just head back to our apartment.
When we got home, I checked my original blog posting from 2014 and took at look at his web site, and decided that it might well have been Mr. de Castell after all. Conveniently, the web site included a contact form, and I thought it would be polite to pass along my best wishes, regardless of whether or not it had actually been him, and composed the following:
As my wife and I were leaving the Sunshine Diner on Broadway this morning, I turned to her and said, "THAT was Sebastien de Castell ordering breakfast back there!!! He's a brilliant fantasy author, I saw him at a Writer's Fest event with William Gibson a few years ago!"To my mild surprise and extreme gratification, I received a response a couple of hours later, presumably after he had finished breakfast, returned home, and decided to check e-mail.
She said, "Did you want to go back?"
"No, I don't want to interrupt the man's breakfast just to be a fanboy, what kind of Canadian would I be? And I could be wrong, it might not be him."
But, just in case, I would have said that I've really enjoyed your Greatcoat books, excellent stuff, thanks so much! And if it was you, I also hope you enjoyed your breakfast, it took us forever to get coffee.
Hi Sid,
Yes, that was indeed me. Why didn’t you stop by and say hello? I wouldn’t have minded at all. More importantly, it would’ve impressed my wife tremendously, which is really the primary motivation of my existence. The only occasion on which someone’s come up to my table at a restaurant and asked if I was myself was at the lovely Fable restaurant down on 4th. The person who came up was an as-yet unpublished novelist named Nicholas Eames, who’s now a much more famous novelist than I am.
So just think what you missed out on ;)
Thanks for the kind words about the Greatcoats!
Best,
Sebastien
It's always a pleasure when someone who is in the public eye in any way responds well to their fan base, and I feel that Mr. de Castell's response is both friendly and gracious. In return, I strongly recommend his writing to anyone reading this post - for more information, please visit:
And, if you believe that lightning strikes twice and you'd like to have your own brush with greatness, you are welcome to visit the Sunshine Diner at 2649 W Broadway in Vancouver, who knows, you may get lucky. Although, full disclosure, I only go there for breakfast once in a while.
- Sid
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