Last weekend I was driving home from our Winterfire retreat, and my ears filled with honking geese, a sound that always softens me. Then I looked up and saw V after V of them flying, ragged and determined, across the pale sky, and I realized — it’s February.

As a kid, I loved playing hide and seek.

I loved the breathless joy of being tucked out of sight, behind a curtain or under a bed, ears pricked for footsteps. I loved the sheer aliveness of being suspended between invisible and visible, waiting for the sudden reveal.  

Begin here: I’ve got nothing.

I had big ideas about sending you a banger of a newsletter this January. I started the year with an unexpected swell of inspiration and drive.

Even though I won’t send it right away, I’m writing you this early on January 1st, while the whole world — or so it seems — is still still sleeping.

Here we are, on the darkest of the year.

According to my weather app, the sun will rise today at 7:48am, shortly after this arrives in your inboxes, and will set at 4:43pm.

Do you need to exhale?

We are all holding so much right now.

Hi hi hi!  

We’ve all heard it, right? Writing is a chore, a long painful task, and that — and this line is attributed to too many writers to count — “All you do is sit down at a typewriter and bleed.”

There’s an idea that’s always irked me in mainstream writing inspiration.

It goes something like this — if you don’t write it, someone else will, and it will be too late.

On one hand… sure? This could happen…

I’ve shared a few times my deep dream of opening a writing retreat centre in Southern Ontario. This vision has been close to my heart my whole adult life, I can hardly remember a version of myself without it.

Hi hi, Mari here! (Yes, I used to go by “Mary,” more on that in a moment…)

A while ago, my The Big One group and I were talking about the shame and discouragement we sometimes feel when the inspiration isn’t flowing.

Our fall writing workshop line-up launches today, and I’m indulging myself in my favorite lines from fall poems.

It seems like there are so many of them.

There’s “Fall Song” by Joy Harjo, with the line — “I need a song that will keep sky open in my mind.”

I mostly stay away from trends.

They usually pass before I catch up anyway, and I’d rather stay focused on what’s in my lane — you, writing, all this.

If you had told me a few years ago that I’d be emailing you about a “Digital Cottage Day,” I’d have walked right out of the room.

I was a workshop purist, clear in my ideas about how writing gatherings should look…

I used to be so confused by other people’s long-term relationship goals.

Everyone seemed to want spontaneity in a partner — I want someone who will make me laugh, someone who will surprise me, someone who will keep me on my toes.

Hello Bright Lights!

Asifa, Kim, and Mary here—we make up the BIPOC wing of Firefly…

Lately, I’ve been thinking about cusps.

Edges. Borders. Margins. That shimmering line where the familiar and the unfamiliar meet…

Do you ever feel like you don’t read enough?

A while back I innocently started a workshop by asking participants to share a book that changed them. It was so stressful.

Hello Sweet Peeps. We’re launching a new financial aid system at Firefly this week…