Keep Your Pen Moving

A workshop for anyone who wants bulgy hand muscles

So you want to write…

This is a high-energy class for anyone who wants to get their heart pumping and their hand dancing across the page or keyboard. We’ll write quickly and slowly, seriously and playfully, letters, poems, tributes, rants, memories, tiny stories, and passionate diatribes. Come splash your feet in the beautiful waters of your own creative voice.

Here’s how it works:

In this workshop, we’ll work through short, fun writing exercises to unclog our creativity and produce lots of new material.

We'll explore a mix of autobiographical writing, character development, and yes, even some poetry. (This isn't English class — we'll make it fun.) We’ll share work as we create it, and everyone will have the chance to write one piece to bring to the group for deeper feedback.

This workshop aims to be encouraging, joyful and productive at every step.

    • Feel a creative pulse, but haven’t listened to it in a while.

    • Struggle to make time for their creative projects, or even to dream up creative projects.

    • Love the idea of a weekly creative date with a small group of others.

    • Feel ready (though maybe a little scared) to share their writing.

    • Are interested in exploring their own lives as writing material and sharing some of what comes up. (We tend to get a little personal.)

    • Thrive in small, cozy groups.

    • Feel aligned with our fundamental beliefs.

    • Lots of new writing.

    • A renewed sense of your writing voice and your unique gifts as a writer.

    • Writing peers whose work you are invested in.

    • A feeling of creative playfulness and possibility.

    • A fictional character whose voice you can access any time.

    • Creative courage.

    • Critique or competition. We’re all about the love.

    • Strict rules on “how to write”. We’ll work on developing your writing skills but we don’t subscribe to the idea that there’s one way to create powerful work.

    • Pressure to write things you don’t want to write. We go where the joy is.

Details for Winter 2025:

On Zoom with Asifa (she/her)

8 Wednesday evenings, weekly
6:30 - 9pm ET
January 15 - March 5

Cost:

The fee for this 8-session workshop is $595. If you prefer, you can pay in 4 monthly installments of $148.75. Tax will be added for Canadians, in your local provincial rate. See our financial policies.

Four times a year, we give out bursaries for our programs to people with financial barriers. Check out our upcoming dates.

If you don’t have a credit card, let us know and we’ll gladly find a way to make it work.

Sign up here:

What clients are saying…

  • Headshot of Kelsey Rideout

    Taking classes with Firefly has been instrumental to waking me up to the journey that is writing; to finding clarity in what I want to write and to remembering why it matters. Now writing is less to me like a stray cat, only looking for short-lived cuddles before darting off again into the distant night, and more like a home, a part of the body, a daily need. Firefly Creative Writing is such a rare and powerful gift to me, and to the literary community in Toronto and beyond.

    Kelsey Rideout
    Writer

  • Headshot of Aileen

    I was really surprised at how much I enjoyed this class. This class was more than just writing. It was a much needed space to discover myself in a safe, accepting and beautiful studio. It was comforting to find out that there were others who shared my desire for introspection, who understood the emotion behind the words that I shared and to learn that I too could understand the emotion behind their words. It has strengthened my own self worth. It has filled me with courage to continue writing. To continue sharing my reality and all the things I find beautiful in this world.

    Aileen Mani
    Support Assistant

  • Headshot of Shavaun Jamieson

    Before this class, I didn’t write – I just thought about writing and talked myself out of it. Since, I’m more open to my own creative voice and possibilities. I left the class with the courage to push myself and just go with it at last!

    Shavaun Jamieson
    Writer, Sales Associate