A wide, snowy path leading into the woods with low, warm light filtering in.
First things first, our winter workshops launch today.
These are our mainstay: Small groups with big space to make things happen that are yours and yours alone.
This winter, we have workshops for folks who want to find their voice again, for folks with projects to get finished, a workshop for folks who want to play with words, folks who want to return to old writing, folks who want to submit their work, and lots more.
Together, we’ll ease out of the idea that our work needs to be perfect, so that we can tune into what we really want to make, and how we really want to make it.
We’d love to be in this process with you.
Lately I’ve been noticing I have this annoying habit, where I want to call everything a “creative act.”
Starting a new job or side project? “What a creative act.” Finding your way through a diagnosis or time of low health? “That’s such a creative act.” Trying to figure out why life just doesn’t feel right these days — yup. “Creative act.”
Growing up I was told that there were five ways to be creative. You could draw, dance, write, get a part in a play, or make music. But these days I see creativity anytime we’re doing something we’ve never done, where there are no maps or instructions.
For me, the biggest creative act is human connection.
I like to imagine the space between each of us as a tiny canvas, constantly being added to and changed. We’re not the only ones working on it, so we can’t control the outcome (as much as we try — oof) but we are always impacting it, changing it, bringing our vision to it.
Imagine if art schools have a stream on building intimacy, or creating community, or making a family work well? These things ask for the best of us, we expect those skills to come naturally, but they usually don’t quite. We are always learning.
When you come to a workshop at Firefly, the obvious creative act is writing.
But we’re also inviting you into the quieter creative act of being part of a group of humans, of building a tiny temporary community together, something that has never existed, and will never exist again.
Every single workshop is its own little canvas. As facilitators we create the frame — strong boundaries and clear, principled ground rules. But when each person steps into it, it’s changed. No one (including us) is fully in charge of the outcome.
The depth, joy, vulnerability, and possibility that is alive in each group is there because of each person’s willingness to step into pick up their piece of this project.
Of course, I’m talking about workshops, but I’m also talking about <waving my arms all over the place> this whole thing.
It’s a strange experiment to be one out of almost 9 billion humans, facing existential questions we’ve never faced. The way we show up for that — to our closest people, to our neighbours, to our mail carriers and the stranger cutting us off in traffic — all creative acts.
In some ways it’s getting easier, and in some ways it’s getting harder. But this creative act needs the best of us, and we all need places to practice well. To be together, to be held, with our paint brushes trembling in our hands.
Winter workshops that will help you step back into writing
There’s always a way back.
We’re hosting a 5-week Begin Here workshop, a slightly longer 6-week Keep Your Pen Moving, and 6-week Lift Off, for people who are curious about poetry, but have no idea where to begin.
… And more. The whole line up is here.
Workshops that will help you finish that dang project
Hungry to move something out into the world? This winter we have a workshop about The Art of Revision, a workshop dedicated to making Progress, and a new workshop for anyone who wants support sending their work out to the world.
Applications are open for one more week to The Big One — our longest, widest journey of them all.
Workshops that will help you write in new ways
If you want to open new possibilities in your work, you might be interested in the genre of Romantasy, the idea of writing about death and dying, or the support of a group to go back to your writing archives to see what you didn’t see the first time.
Workshops just for BIPOC and Queer writers
If you are Black, Indigenous, or a Person of Colour, are offering two one-day workshops just for you — one in-person in Toronto, and one online.
And, we’re offering a brand new workshop for LGBTQIA+ folks who want to write into big themes like queer joy, queer grief, queer home, queer futures, and more.
Workshops in person, here in Toronto
We love a table, and we want to keep our in-person gatherings alive! We have three this winter:
A one-day version of Begin Here for anyone who wants to start, or start again. The Word Play Workshop, which will run over 5 Monday evenings. And we have a one-day workshop for BIPOC in December.
These are all in a barrier-free location on the TTC.
And a poem for you.
This beauty, “November for Beginners” by Rita Dove, says it all.
What do we leave in the end?
When I die, I don’t think there will be much fanfare about the words I’ve cobbled together, but I hope this community at Firefly keeps growing and shining. I hope the love and adventures I’ve given my nieces light up their brains. I hope the people I’ve connected stay in each other’s lives long past my own expiry date.
Alice Wong, writer and disability activist who sadly died last year, wrote “The real gift any person can give is a web of connective tissue.”
Here’s to the creative act we can never opt out of, and also never master, but keep bringing our best selves to, imperfectly, over and over.
In it with you,
