Small voice, big world, and the National Day for Truth and Reconciliation.
A tiny orange mushroom growing out of a moss covered tree trunk.
As writers, it’s easy to feel like our voices are very small.
When we look out at the world, we see bestsellers, author signing events and fancy awards. We think “Aaaah, that’s what writers do.”
But it’s not. Most writers write for the people they know. Some post online. A few submit to contests and magazines.
Every so often, a meteor blasts through a window and lands on a writer’s lap and they join the festival headliners. It happens. It will happen to someone who is reading this newsletter. It is so exciting. But it’s rare. And it’s not… writing.
Follow me into human history for a sec.
It wasn’t that long ago that our influence was as far as our actual voices could carry.
We shared stories around food and campfires. We used our voices to love and flirt and soothe, to fight and build community. Our entire audience was people we could see and count. That was normal, so it was enough.
Can you feel yourself there? Can you imagine creating something without any pressure to reach beyond your arm’s length? What would you make in that space? What would you allow?
It’s National Day for Truth and Reconciliation.
It’s easy to feel that same smallness — like any efforts towards change need to be meteoric to matter. The damage of colonialism to human communities is colossal beyond the scope of our little human minds.
How can our actions to heal it not be?
Here’s what I want to do today:
To go back and stop Bill 5 from being passed in the Ontario legislature.
To pull all the mercury out of the water supply at Grassy Narrows.
To finally settle the land claim that the Saugeen Ojibway Nation walked away from this summer after a decade of expense and effort.
To bring all the missing and murdered Indigenous women, girls, and trans people home.
The list goes on and on and on. My reach and influence feels minuscule and defeating.
When I sit in the ache of that, I hear the advice I’d give myself as a writer.
I’d say — you’re not in charge of your reach, you’re in charge of your work.
I’d say — what’s the next thing you can do? What’s the first step?
We’ve had massive joy over the past couple years getting to know some of the wonderful people at Indigenous Youth Roots (IYR). They are an Indigenous run org dedicated to strengthening and amplifying the voices of Indigenous youth across the country.
They have a program called “Creation Grants” where they fund to Indigenous youth who are leading their own meaningful community projects and initiatives.
Here’s what we are doing today — kicking off a drive to fund 2-3 new grants, dedicated to creative expression.
For the next 12 months, we’re going to work on raising $10,000 to fund those projects.
Here’s how it will work:
We’ll raise money throughout the year with your help. We’ll run fundraisers, we’ll invite you to donate directly and we’ll keep thinking up new ideas.
At the end of the 12 months, their Indigenous youth committee will review the applications and award the grants.
If the grant recipients are cool with it, we’ll share what they got up to. (It’s important to us that they don’t feel pressured to share.)
If it works, we’ll keep going!
Do you want to get started right now?
This week — up until the end of Friday October 3rd, in exchange for a donation of any amount to our campaign, we’re offering new members free 3-month subscriptions to Morning Coffee Sessions.
You just need to make a donation here (you’ll get a tax receipt), grab your confirmation number, and send it to Lesley to get on the list. You’ll get to join right away, and you’ll tap into live, guided writing sessions every weekday at 9am until the end of 2025.
If you’re already subscribed to Morning Coffee Sessions, you can still take part by gifting a spot to a friend, or making a donation for the love of it.
This will not create meteoric change on a national scale.
It won’t budge any of the urgent issues I named above. But our collaborators at IYR wanted us to remember and share that joy is part of reconciliation, too.
Yes, the road is pitted with pain, and real reconciliation requires reckoning. But it’s also made from the pleasure of sharing resources. It’s made from our genuine friendships with these wonderful people, and the amount that we laugh in our meetings.
It’s built on the creative life force moving through any community, saying, “Something else can happen here.”
Looking to untie some creative knots this fall?
Four of our team are taking new clients right now: Asifa, Mari, Sophia, and Kim.
They can offer a 1-on-1 space where you can exhale, ask everything, find the tools you need, and move at your own pace.
Our community bonfire night was so beautiful!
Thanks to everyone who came out. So many! I wanted to hug all of you.
Our next big community event will be online this winter. Maybe an Open Mic? We’re taking ideas if there’s something you’d love to see us do. Just write me back.
A poem for your Truth and Reconciliation Day.
This beauty is in katherena vermette’s new book, procession. katherena vermette is a Red River Métis poet and filmmaker who also writes fiction.
It’s worth saying — maybe this project won’t be small.
$10,000 is a direction, not a cap. Nothing is stopping us from raising twenty times as much and funding way more grants.
If you’re in a position to share deeply, lean in. Every penny we raise will go to the hardworking grant applicants.
And maybe nothing is small, after all. We write the next sentence. We take the next action. We gather at the campfire or the book launch or the protest. We keep moving down the road of creativity, one step at a time, together.
In it with you,
