New coaches and new classes!

An image of Chris, Mary, Asifa, and Kim.

This is a big moment.

As you may know, we went through a huge, multi-layered recruitment process this winter. It felt like a river swelling — sooo much energy and chemistry and dreaming flowing with us. We met amazing people, learned, grew, swooned, and had our hearts genuinely broken that we had to say so many “not this time”s. Shout out to all the beautiful souls who applied! We are so grateful that you took a chance on us.

And now it’s time to step into the future with our three new rockstar team members, Mary, Asifa, and Kim. All three are deep in training now and will be co-facilitating workshops later this spring and then on their own by summer.

I am giddy to introduce them to you. Here we go.

True fact: The very practical part of me didn’t want to get attached to Mary.

She lives in London ON, and while I was open to exploring having facilitators outside Toronto, this felt like a stretch. But I couldn’t deny that her application was stellar, so I waded in, and very quickly, I couldn’t imagine the team without her.

Mary has a bright enthusiasm for writing that beams through a room, and she effortlessly draws other people into that light. In the last couple years, she’s written two novels — a utopian young adult novel and a family history based on her mother’s family in rural Guatemala. Mary’s style of leadership is warm, comfortable, and very, very fun. As well as working at Firefly, she is a freelance writer and teaches small business at Fanshawe College.

Mary is excited to cheerlead writers through fiction and non-fiction projects. She also has a particular passion for helping to draw out stories of migration, immigration and racialized identities, sharing her own story about moving from Guatemala to Monkton as a 6 year old. And — so exciting — she is planning offer Firefly workshops in her first language, Spanish. She’ll be working out of Toronto and London.

To work with Mary this spring, check out a new experiment: A one-day version of Begin Here, which she'll be running alongside Coach Britt later this spring.

Asifa arrived at Firefly this winter like a marvellous surprise.

None of us knew her name, but her job application beamed with honesty and warmth, and when we met her, we instantly saw someone who could take this work to very deep places. When she left her interview, Britt and I looked at each other, hands on our chests, and burst into joyful laughter. It just felt so right.

Asifa has a gentle and powerful presence and a profound understanding of how to hold space for transformation. For the last decade, she has facilitated therapeutic groups for mothers and children who are healing from violence. She loves poetry and exploring how embodied practices like meditation can let our words and ideas flow in new ways.

She is excited to work with writers who are birthing big stories from the heart. She also looks forward to sharing her love of poetry and short vignette-style writing, and to explore how the sacred, spiritual elements of life can show up on the page. She hopes to someday run Firefly workshops in her first language of Urdu, especially for young people who are longing for a connection to the language.

To work with Asifa this spring, check out our 5-week Begin Here class, which she'll be running alongside Coach Ailsa.

Last but not least, Kim Abrahamse.

Okay, I have a secret when it comes to Kim. I’ve been thinking about her being part of our team for years. I never told her, because I didn’t want to sway her into applying if it wasn’t absolutely right for her, but when I saw her name on an application form, I beamed.

Kim is a self-professed writing nerd; the energy and joy she gets from language is infectious. It seems like every time she opens her mouth about writing I learn something. She has done MANY writing classes, and gobbles up blog posts and books on writing. She pairs that full brain with a big heart, and a deep sense of empathy for the human element of creativity. She loves to share her learning, to listen to what other people are working on, and to ride in the ups and downs of pursuing creative dreams. Kim has worked as a professional writer and editor for years, and meanwhile has been at work on her heart’s true work — a young adult science fiction novel, and silly, playful children’s poetry.

Kim is excited to work with clients who are hungry for story structure and theory. She hopes to run classes on revising work, and building rituals and practices that help us to step more fully into our productivity and identity as writers. She’s also interested in creating accountability and support for writers who want to submit work to magazines, agents and publishers. AND she hopes to one day run a class based entirely on writing silly poetry for kids.

To work with Kim this spring, check out our 8-week Keep Your Pen Moving class, which she'll be running alongside Coach Ailsa, or Kim’s own Keep Your Pen Moving class, which she’s teaching solo a little later in the season.

Thank you for sharing this celebratory moment with us!

If you want to send notes to any of these sweet people, you can email them at their shiny new email addresses: their first name followed by @fireflycreativewriting.com.

Here’s to growth in all its beautiful iterations, and here’s to the three marvelous humans we’re welcoming into our ecosystem.

Smiling wide,