We’re hosting a BIPOC Open Mic next week!

Written By Chris Fraser
 

Coaches Asifa, Kim, and Mari smiling on a cottage porch.

 

Hello 👋🏾 lovely Fireflies,

Asifa, Kim, and Mari here, taking over the airwaves to talk about our upcoming BIPOC Open Mic Night, and our ongoing programming run for and by people of colour.

The three of us all became part of the Firefly team at the same time in early 2020. It’s unbelievable that it’s been 5 years of this beautiful big Firefly community. 

We recently had a skin-tingly conversation about why BIPOC programming matters so much to us.

We all left feeling like the exploding head emoji, in the best way. Naturally, we had to share our thoughts with you.

First of all, in case it’s new to you, BIPOC stands for “Black, Indigenous, and People of Colour.” It’s not a perfect term, but to us, it’s the only one that adequately acknowledges our identities as together but distinct. While BIPOC are completely welcome in all Firefly’s spaces, the programs we’re talking about here are designed specifically for, and by, us.

Firefly has had programming run for and by BIPOC since it was started by our predecessors Jenna Tenn-Yuk and Saroo Sharda way back in 2017. Since then, we’ve run BIPOC-only workshops, open mic nights, one-day retreats, and our favourite thing (which the three of us dreamed up) – the BIPOC Writing Space, a twice-monthly drop-in writing program.

We are so proud of this programming, especially considering how hard the world has been over these past four years. It’s not always easy for any of us, or our writers, to keep showing up, but we do it, over and over — holding space for each other to bring our full selves to the page.

This is tender work in a hard, harsh, heart-sick world. 

We’re blown away by the breadth of the writing that we see in these sessions. We love it when a piece has people laughing followed by a piece that has us all in tears. This diversity feels like proof that writers know they are at the wheel of their own experience, with full permission to go to the hard stuff or stick with the funner stuff (and yes we did say funner, writing can’t be too serious). 

Holding space for whatever shows up requires humility and a deep commitment from us to keep learning and listening to what our writers need. So, we do a lot of training, and we’re constantly refining our BIPOC-specific community agreements. We also love having an active listener at all sessions in case anyone needs to step away to find an empathetic ear.

We have a free event for BIPOC coming up!

We love this community and we want it to grow. Once a year, we open our doors as wide as possible in a BIPOC Open Mic Night, so that any BIPOC person can come participate and experience this community, whether they already consider themselves a writer or not.

If you identify as racialized, and you are curious at all, please join us for this free event. And if you aren’t, think about whether there’s someone you can share this newsletter with to spread the word.

And whatever your identity, we have some Firefly programs this fall with your name on them.

We still have space in these four autumn workshops.

We spaces left in these 4 beauties:

Here are the open mic deets.

This is our fifth annual online open mic night exclusively for Black, Indigenous, and People of Colour. It will be hosted by Kim, Mari, and Asifa on September 25th.

Free, and on Zoom.

Click here for all the info.

We also work with writers 1-on-1.

If a workshop or event isn’t the right place for you today, we also offer coaching packages that are customizable to your unique writerly needs.

Right now, the three of us and Sophia are taking new clients.

Here are all the details.

And, a poem.

A warm and grounding poem, read to you by Asifa.

Read or listen here.

We know it’s hard work to be a human in this world at times, and that’s why spaces of connection and belonging matter so much.

We love writing with you in all the ways. You make this work possible and we are so grateful for each one of you around the table or in your Zoom square.

Thanks for reading this, thanks for being in the big messy beauty with us. 

High fives and hugs,

 
 
Chris Fraser
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