Firefly Open Mic Night
A microphone on a stage with the words “Come read your work to the nicest people on the Internet”.
Our next Open Mic Night will be on Tuesday June 1st… online.
After many beautiful evenings crammed into our beautiful studio on the Danforth, we are reinventing our open mic night and bringing it to Zoom. Our dream is to create a warm and inspiring place for Fireflies, friends, and anyone who is curious about our community to show up with open hearts, and celebrate all the things that words can do.
Our theme is “rebirth and renewal,” we welcome all writing (under 500 words) on that theme.
Since we’re going to be online, we’re doing it a little bit differently. Here’s how:
Mari and Asifa
We’ll be meeting on Zoom video conferencing, and we’re selling tickets in advance, right here (scroll down).
We’ll encourage our audience to keep their cameras on, so that our readers will be able to see faces, and feel connected to their listeners.
We’ll encourage listeners to do LOTS of sharing in the chat of emojis and phrases they love, in order to make that delicious hum of togetherness we naturally create when we’re all in one room.
At the half-way point, we’ll take a break and then reconvene to WRITE, our hosts Mary and Asifa will run is through two short writing prompts, so that readers and audience area all engaged in a creative process.
To increase accessibility, we’ll have Active Listener Amanda Lederle present in case anyone needs a quiet corner to talk, and we’re working on finding an ASL-English interpreter. If you have any leads, hit us up!
If you want to read a piece, simply show up. You’ll be directed when you arrive to send a direct message to Firefly coach Chris through Zoom chat at a point in the evening to put your name into the random name selector, which will determine who will read and in what order.
Each reader will only have 4 minutes, including any preamble, so keep your work under 500 words. All work should be on the theme of “Rebirth and Renewal.”
If you don’t want to read, still come! We want to make a sea of smiling faces.
This is a hate-free space. Anyone reading work or making comments that promoting racism or other forms of bigotry will be removed.
We’ll start the evening at 7:15pm EDT. Two Firefly coaches, Mary and Asifa, will walk us through the evening, including a break in the middle and time for everyone to follow some writing prompts together. We’ll wrap up by 9pm.
Never performed? Perfect! We’re nervous too. Awkwardness is beautiful. If you’re a veteran of the stage, you are also very welcome.
This evening will be perfect for you if:
You’re delighted (and slightly terrified by) the idea of reading your work in front of a crowd…. Or you just want to listen and support.
You want to slide out of your day-to-day to connect with other people who love words.
You adore the idea of celebrating new voices, especially the shaky, tentative ones.
You’re curious about our community and want to spend some time in it’s warm glow.
This won’t be a great night for you if:
You want to share a piece that’s longer than 500 words. We’re keeping them short and sweet for this first online event.
You’ll be heartbroken if your name isn’t chosen. We don’t know how many people will want to read, and we aren’t guaranteeing spots. Names will be chosen randomly.
You don’t identify with the grouping of, “Nicest people on the internet.”
You don’t have a private space away from kids. Since we can’t control the content being shared, we don’t recommend this event for children.
All the details:
This event will take place on Tuesday, June 1, 2021. We’ll start at 7:15pm and wrap up by 9pm (EDT).
We collect $5-$10 in advance to help pay for our active listener and ASL-English interpreter. Any additional funds collected will go to into our bursary fund, helping lower-income writers access our programming. If that’s too steep, we’ll gladly make an exception, just drop us a line.