Once you’re a member, you can access the desktop site at firesidecommunity.circle.so. We’d recommend saving this link somewhere easy to find, so you always know how to come back.

You can also download the Circle app here to access the site from your mobile device.

Yes. Almost all our events will be recorded.

To keep things fresh, we won’t save them forever.

The monthly Writing Reset Sessions will be available for a month. When the next one happens, we’ll replace the old recording. Members will always have access to the latest one.

All other writing sessions will be taped and kept for at least a 2 months. We’ll keep our favourite sessions around for much longer.

Okay, this is fun. We found two strong requests in our survey about membership, so we combined them in this program.

First of all, we’ll all settle in, warm up, and use the chat to name and celebrate any writing wins that month.

Then writers can choose – if you’re blocked and need inspiration, you can spend the next 90 mins with a Firefly coach offering guided writing prompts and fun, short writes to get you inspired.

If you have a project that needs some loving attention, you can spend that time with a different coach in another Zoom room dedicated to quiet co-writing time. 

At the end, we’ll come back together to set some goals or intentions for the month ahead.

DO YOU HAVE ALL DAY. We have so many ideas. Here are a few.

• Author evenings – we’ll invite authors to come talk about their work and their process, with Q&A, readings, and maybe some writing time too.

• Nuts-and-bolts sessions with us on writing skills and questions like – how do I organize a big project? How do I make sense of plot? How do I start my memoir?

• Community mixers – guided dialogue and small group work to connect to other people who love writing, and explore some of your creative questions. (We think of this as a very wholesome and platonic speed dating, for writing pals.)

• Lab times – want to see where our creativity is taking us? In these sessions, we’ll try out new experimental writing workshop ideas, and you’ll tell us what works and what doesn’t.

• Question nights – like “Ask Me Anything" but we’ll also invite your answers to make it into more of a community conversation than an expert evening. We’ll all experts. Let’s ask and answer questions together.

Aaaah, we have so many ideas! Here are a few we’ve been chewing on:

• Writing when we’re stuck — finding ways to get out of our head and back to the page when it feels like nothing is working.

• Writing towards meaning — aligning our values with our work to bring more purpose to our creative projects.

• Writing about travel, pets aging, parenting, loss, hope, grief, delight — there are so many themes to gather and explore together.

• Writing that weaves in other languages — writers who speak multiple languages (fluently or partially), have access to whole worlds beyond English. Those languages can be invited in, to deepen and layer our work.

• Early birds and night owls unite — we’ll explore extra early sessions or extra late ones to help us see what the outer reaches of the day has in store for our creativity.

Like everything else in this program, we have loads of ideas and will be releasing this slowly over time, a new resource or two every month.

Here’s some of what we’re planning:

• Writing meditations — audio meditations and visualizations to help guide and deepen your writing practice.

• Tools for plot and character development — self-guided resources to help you with the structural parts of writing stories.

• Journaling templates — beautiful, guided templates to help you get back to your own voice.

• Resources to create your own writing groups — Over the years we’ve developed some useful tools and guidelines to help writers gather. We’ll share these to help you create your own writing groups and gatherings.

• Hello Writer Revisits — For seven years we sent out care packages to writers every month, with prompts, self-care homework, and a letter. We’ll re-release one per month digitally, with an audio version, updated to make it resonate now.

Yes. In this first year we’re going to try lots of things, getting feedback throughout to let us listen and get to know what this membership community is becoming.

Maybe one element will turn out to be wildly popular, and become a regular occurrence. Maybe something we think will be a hit will flop, and we’ll never do it again.

This membership is a chance to grow with us, and to be part of an organic process with lots of back and forth. We’ll welcome your feedback at every stage, with regular check ins, and an open door for feedback at every stage.

As the poet Antonio Machado wrote — we make the road by walking.

All the Firefly coaches will take part in these, in a rotating schedule according to our availability.

No, we’ll ask you to use your 1-on-1 coaching session within the 4-month block that it’s booked. This is to make sure you do use it, and also to manage our own schedules.

Yes, so long as their agenda links up with yours, you’ll have your choice of coach.

You’ll receive an email after 4 months of membership with a form to fill in with your availability and anything else you want s to know, and we’ll get in touch to book you session.

There will be three a year, in January, May and September.

The next recruitment period is posted on our webpage.

We love a welcome mat. By limiting recruitment to three times a year, we can be intentional about welcoming the new members to the space.

After each recruitment period will be a welcome and orientation evening, where we show everyone how to navigate the resource library, get involved, and find the right level of engagement.

This also lets us plan each season with more thoughtfulness, knowing when we’re expecting new members, and when people have been around a while.

No. We open registration three times a year and we welcome our new cohort with a special evening to get them all set up (and to do some writing of course).

We’re aiming to scatter sessions through the season to capture lots of different availabilities.

That said, this winter, the Writing Reset Sessions will always be on Thursday evenings. We’ll change that up after each recruitment period (every four months), to see what works best for our peeps.

Our other programs will be spread through the month, and the resource library will be open 24/7.

OK, truth? We want to get old with you. We can easily see ourselves doing this long, long into the future.

But, we can’t know. Right now we’re firmly committing to one year. That will give us enough time to get to know what this is, and how it’s serving you, and us. The program will probably go longer, but one year is our commitment.

If you buy a yearlong membership and we wrap the program before it’s done, we’ll refund the balance of course.

Once you sign up, your price will stay the same for as long as you’re enrolled. We’ll likely raise the price for new members after 6–12 months, but so long as your enrollment is consistent, you’ll keep your initial price.

Yes. We aren’t immune! If you’re here in Canada, you’ll pay your provincial sales tax rate.

Absolutely. While we only open for registrations three times a year, you’re not locked in. If you’re not feeling the buzz, cancel anytime. 

No. You can cancel anytime, but all payments are final.

If you can’t currently afford the lowest price, let us know — we’ll find a way to make it work.