Victoria January - February 2018

One of the highlights of a new year at Victoria is announcing our choices for the Writer-in-Residence and Artist-in-Residence. I am pleased to introduce Rebecca McClanahan as Writer-in-Residence and Valerie Greeley as Artist-in-Residence for 2018. These women will be important contributors to our magazine in the coming year, and you will be the beneficiary as they share their talents. You will find contact information for both Rebecca and Valerie in Where to Shop and Buy on page 95. Our annual Business of Bliss feature highlights an exciting selection of women who have reshaped their lives by forging new paths doing what they love. A home fragrance and bath products team, a jeweler, a cosmetics and self-care boutique owner, a cake artisan, a cheesemaker (who is also a literary agent), the owner…

Take a closer look at some of our favorite January/February features: The Fragrant Laundry Our easy-to-make aromatic spray, a delightful laundry booster, scented starch, and a natural alternative to dryer sheets add freshness to fabrics. A Web-Exclusive Recipe Experience the delicious indulgence of chocolate-covered Cherry Éclairs. Sprinkles of gold leaf complete this confection, developed by our chocolatier. The Art of Paper Stephanie Monahan shows Victoria readers how to make beautifully embellished pieces perfect for gifting, or for adorning home and office. Reviving History Go behind the scenes of Reborn Relics Home as owner Debi Davis offers an exclusive look at her process of restoring architectural fragments. We love your ideas! Do you have any suggestions about something you’d like to see in the magazine? If so, email us at victoriamagazine@hoffmanmedia.com. Look for this symbol throughout the magazine for more online information. Visit…

Tucked away are the bright ornaments and sentimental notions that mark the holidays, as winter reveals its full splendor across the land, hanging icicles from roof ’s edge and sending out frosty breezes like envoys. In this issue, Victoria readers share the ways they dress interiors for the season and beckon warmth and coziness into their surroundings. After a month of seeing the traditional red-and-green color scheme, my post-holiday décor lightens. I decorate with gentle pinks and snowy white vintage lace. The mantel—cleared of Santas, greens, and ornaments—is wiped clean and allows space for a winter display of china teapots, small pitchers, or handblown glass. Simply relocating the collections brings special attention to them. I invite friends for casual, low-key visits where we converse by the fire. We appreciate the end…

WRITER-IN-RESIDENCE Poet and literary nonfiction writer Rebecca McClanahan is author, most recently, of The Tribal Knot: A Memoir of Family, Community, and a Century of Change, a book that draws upon more than one hundred years of letters and documents to weave the multigenerational tapestry of her family history. Recipient of the Pushcart Prize, among other awards and fellowships, Rebecca is also an educator—teaching in her hometown at Queens University of Charlotte in North Carolina; in the Rainier Writing Workshop at Pacific Lutheran University in Tacoma, Washington; and serving as faculty for the Kenyon Review Writers Workshop. Her books on writing include Write Your Heart Out: Exploring & Expressing What Matters to You and Word Painting: The Fine Art of Writing Descriptively, currently in its sixth printing. ARTIST-IN-RESIDENCE Valerie Greeley’s illustrations have graced…

“Each time I open an envelope, my ancestors come alive on the page, and I join them in whatever their days and nights offer: lamentation or celebration. Poverty or fortune. Christening or burial. Darkness or light.” On a snowy January morning in 1912, a young man boarded a train, cradling a bouquet of white roses. It was a Thursday, Arthur’s last morning as a single man. His destination was a farmhouse outside Stockwell, Indiana, about thirty-five miles south, where the wedding would be held. He was wearing his only good suit, topped by an overcoat his father had loaned him. Decades later, Arthur would tell his grandchildren, “I was so poor it hurt.” But he had saved “a few pennies” from his job at the grocery store, enough to afford a…

“BEAUTY IS A NECTAR WHICH INTOXICATES THE SOUL.” —T. C. Henley…