All the World is a Stage
The world is a stage, but where are the microphones?
A panel with Firefly community members about the many ways to share our work with the world.
When we finish a piece of writing, we often have a second instinct – to share it. Thank goodness! Sharing our work is a life-giving way to build paths between our hearts and others, to share insights and experiences, to grow and grieve and expand together.
But – how, right? The publishing industry is full of possibility, but can also be exclusionary and hard to break into. Submitting our work to contests and journals can be motivating, but we face a lot of rejection. Self-publishing gives us the most freedom yet, but it can be expensive, and we’re left to build our own audience.
The options are dizzying. If we want or need to make money, this all gets even more complicated.
Joining us to help clear the noise are three members of our community who have found success sharing their work with the world in very different ways. Each one will share a little about their journey, including the ups and downs of the path they chose, and then we’ll curate a spacious question-and-answer period with the audience to fill up our cups with information and experiences.
We’re hoping that everyone will leave with a sense of which path might be right for them, as well as motivation, resources and encouragement to keep going.
Details:
Thursday, December 10, 2026
7–9pm ET
Hosted on Zoom by Kim and Chris
Kim (she/her)
Chris (she/her)
The Panelists:
Nancy Huggett will be talking about publishing poetry in magazines and journals.
Nancy is a writer and poet whose work has been published widely in journals and magazines, including in The American Literary Review, Citron Review, The Forge, Best Canadian Poetry 2026, Dust, Event, Literary Mama, and Prairie Fire. She is the winner of an RBC-PEN Canada New Voices Award, the 2022 American Literary Review’s CNF award and the 2024 Fiddlehead CNF contest among others. She has also chalked up a gazillion (ongoing and forthcoming) rejections.
For Nancy, writing is about showing up and being willing to be frustrated, surprised, amazed, and humbled — by what she doesn't know, what she does know, how much there is to know.
Her first book of poems, “Maybe, Cicadas”, about caregiving, is coming out next year with the University of Alberta press.
Dimple Mukherjee will be talking about self-publishing a non-fiction book.
Dimple is a writer and Occupational Therapist with a passion for helping people live intentionally.
Dimple has been writing for decades, and in 2021 she self-published her first book, “Word of the Year – True Stories About Intentional Living Using the Power of a Single Word”. Later in 2024 she published a companion deck.
Dimple has dedicated years to understanding how profoundly our words can shape our paths.
When she is not writing, Dimple loves to travel the world, dance to Bollywood music, and help others ignite their inner spark.
Her publishing journey has shown her that bite size pieces become larger than life creations.
Aside from this book, Dimple writes poetry and non-fiction. She is working on her first memoir.
Curtis Campbell will be talking about publishing two novels and a play.
Curtis is a writer, theatre maker, teacher, director, and comedian.
He published his first young adult novel Dragging Mason County (about rural teenagers doing drag) in 2023 with Annick Press. It was a White Raven List selection, and a Publishing Triangle Award winner, an Ontario Library Association Best Bets Top Ten Title, and was shortlisted for the Jacqueline Woodson Award for LGBTQ+ Young Adult and Children’s Literature. It was also made into an audio book by Penguin.
He has since published another YA novel, Lying, Stealing, and Other Ways to Save the Planet, with Annick Press, and a play, Gay For Pay: The Blake & Clay Plays with Scirocco Drama, which was a Dora Awards Best New Play Nominee in 2023 and received the Second City Award For Outstanding Comedy, 2022.
Curtis' experience publishing taught him how to wrangle big ideas into smaller spaces, and how to take the time a project needs.
When he isn't writing, he’s making bread and then eating that bread, and teaching writing for theatre and storytelling at Bad Dog Theatre company.
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Credit where credit is due:
The photo we’re using to promote this page was taken by Matthias Wagner (via Unsplash).