What I’m learning by trying to advertise Firefly. 🤢
A huge boulder with a tree growing on top of it, roots curving around.
Oof, this is awkward.
Right now we’re trying to do something we haven’t done in a long time, even though most people would consider it a normal part of running a business — we’re trying to advertise.
I don’t really believe in advertising. I think we grow communities by treating them beautifully, and doing the best work we can, at every opportunity. That’s how Firefly usually works.
But, to get where we need to get this year, we could really use a registration boost this fall, so it’s time to reach beyond our circle. Fireside, our membership program for writers, is all ready to grow, but we don’t know how to get it “out there.”
There is one person I trust with this.
Her name is Lara Eastburn. She does advertising from a place of deep authenticity and alignment. Her philosophy is that if you can find the words and images to represent what you do in as specific and transparent a way as possible, your people will naturally find you.
I like this, and I like her, so we decided we’d bring her in to make some ads to lead up to Fireside’s next registration window in September.
It has not been going as I hoped.
Like a lot of people, when Lara looks at us, the first thing she sees is softness. Kindness, support, cookies. Of course, right? Maybe you do too. Her first set of ads mirrored that back — cutesy fonts and glowing edges. You could almost hear the glockenspiel in the background.
I hated them.
But I trust Lara, so I tried to explain.
I said that while yes, we centre kindness, it’s not the kindness of small talk or greeting cards. It’s another kind of kindness, more real and rigorous.
We use kindness as an ice pick to help writers break down the walls that keep them from writing what they really want to write. We use kindness as a heavy counterbalance to all the forces in the world telling us that we need to break ourselves down to make good things.
From the first moment writing leaves our hands, our eyes are trained outside of ourselves. We want to know — Is it good? Am I good? How good? With our attention tuned outward, our voices get more and more strained, and our inner compasses get harder to read.
Our kind of kindness insists that every voice in the circle matters equally, and in that space, gently steers writers away from that external focus, and finds themselves again — in the group and on the page.
Lara said — oh I can't tell you how helpful this is.
She got back to work on the ads, scrubbing out the “good vibes only” energy and bringing in the depth and honesty that fuels us. I love them.
I’m still not sure about advertising, but if it works, this is how — by simply showing strangers who you are, and letting them decide whether to move closer or further away. That’s why it’s vulnerable. Just like writing.
If you see our ads, it helps us if you like them. You’re also always invited to let us know what you don’t like. We like to imagine that our boardroom table stretches way out to include everyone here. We’re making this for you, we’re making this with you, and we care if it feels good to you.
And we’d love to write with you this fall.
Do you want to be part of that little boost we need? You can check out our membership program, which will open for new registrations September 4–14. We also still have spots in some of our small group writing workshops, and (drum roll please) Push Week is coming back.
Here’s all that with links…
Fall writing workshops are open for registration!
Small groups. Deep support. Write, write, write.
You can write a novel, dive into the wilderness of poetry, write letters to courage, or make big progress on a project.
The whole line up (on Zoom and in person) is here.
Push Week is open for registration!
Unlike our workshops, Push Week is designed for a large group, so it’s a distraction-friendly space. Cameras on or off. Dip in and out of the party as you wish.
It’s a 5-day, sliding-scale carnival of forward motion that we all run together.
Fireside Community for Writers opens for registration on September 4th.
If our workshops are the bonfire you leave the house for every once in a while, our membership community is the woodstove that keeps you warm all year.
Registration will be open September 4–14. We’re planning so much good stuff this fall.
Toronto peeps! Come toast a marshmallow with us and make new writing friends.
Saturday, October 3rd at Withrow Park. Come make some face-to-face connections, toast some marshmallows, and talk about writing. We’ll have fun ways to connect, and even a coffee mug exchange!
The space is barrier-free and includes a wheelchair-accessible washroom.
Free of course! We’d love to see you there.
And a poem for you.
This is squarely a 2020 poem, but it’s stayed in my heart all these years. I wanted to come back to it today.
Sometimes someone else puts it best.
Matthew Salesses, one of my favourite critics of traditional writing workshops, writes:
A workshop should not participate in the binding but in freeing the writer from the culturally regulated boundaries of what it is possible to say and how it is possible to say it.
Maybe you can do that without putting kindness in the middle of the table, but if so, I’ve never seen it.
Here’s to doing things our own way, together.
In it with you,
