Introducing: Firefly founder and writing coach Chris Kay Fraser

I always feel a little funny admitting this, but this story starts in High School.

I got lucky. I grew up in a city (Ottawa) that had an arts-based high school with a creative writing stream. I spent those arduous years scribbling in parks and computer rooms, in old farmhouses and on bus trips.

I learned that the way I expressed myself with a pen was fundamentally different than the way I expressed myself around the dining-room table, or with my friends. I learned that the blank page offered a pause between me and the world where I could test waters, try out different paths, and use words in ways that were far truer, wilder and more beautiful than I could in the other places of my life.

After high school, I moved out west to study history at UBC, longing to prove myself in  academia. I filled my days with dates and theories and books, slowly drifting away from everything I loved. Trying to get back to myself, I filled my nights with film and photography classes, but oddly, these dim-lit rooms didn’t feel very different from the university. The freedom I had touched in high school was a long way off.

Then it all changed around a campfire. I took a filmmaking class at the Gulf Islands Film and Television School  and for one month, deep in the old growth of Galiano Island, fifteen of us lived in bunk beds, ate together, and made films at all hours. The combination of wind, good food, and a fiercely caring environment worked its own magic on each of us. Breakthroughs were happening all over the place; people opening up about suicide attempts, reconnecting to estranged family members, falling in love. We stayed up every night cuddling and spilling ourselves out. My heart settled back into it’s old shape.

It was there that I realized that it wasn’t the stuff of creativity that mattered to me, it was the process. We were learning way more than the technical side of things suggested, we were learning to be the authors and producers of our own lives.

Back home, I became the worst dinner-party guest alive. “Hey, since we’re all waiting for the BBQ, why don’t we make a group poem about potatoes?” “We have two hours left on this road trip, want to shoot a documentary?” Two schoolteacher friends lent me their classes to teach poetry to. UBC gave me money to help 120 kids at a public school paint murals on shipping containers in a parking lot. Another grant paid for cameras so I could teach photography to “youth-at-risk” in the east side. (It was a term that neither they nor I liked, but it got us the funding.)

It was an explosive year, but I was broke, burnt-out, over-caffeinated and making lattes to pay the bills. Finally I decided that I needed to take this path more seriously. I moved to Toronto to do my Master of Adult Education and Community Development at OISE, U of T.

OISE filled my brain with ideas about facilitation models, theories of creativity, and ideas about the connection between storytelling and community building. I worked with amazing writing facilitators around North America. I co-created a workshop on writing and singing with Deanna Yerichuk. Perhaps most importantly, I got started back on my own writing. After many years, I was exploring my own inner world again, getting what was inside outside. It felt incredible.

During this time I held an image, deep in my heart, of small writing workshops in cozy rooms with tea and homemade brownies. Finally, I decided to put up some flyers, and “Memory Threads” was born.

I have been facilitating writing groups full-time for eight years, and every year it gets deeper and more exciting.  In case it isn’t clear yet: I love this, I love this, I love this. I love this. I love being witness to creative breakthroughs and deeply personal moments. I love seeing people come back term and after term, marching boldly into their creative worlds. I love the challenge of figuring out what each unique group needs next. I love the feeling after a class when my small home is quiet again, yet full of the rich buzz of creative motion.

I am grateful every day to the people who show up to do this work. From the mushy center of my heart, welcome you into this space.

What clients are saying…

	Chris is a very skilled facilitator who excels at creating warm spaces enabling new and experienced writers to pen hidden gems lurking in our hearts and bones. I've learned a lot about writing but also about joy, vulnerability, healing. Thank you doesn't express the depth of my gratitude. ~ Jenn Paterson
	I just got your feedback on my writing and I want to throw my arms around you and give you a big hug and a smooch! You truly have found your calling and you are my guiding star. Your input and these writing exercises are a major highlight in my life right now. ~ Geo Morrow CEO, Hugzz
	Chris is the best teacher/inspirer/guide I've ever met. ~ Josie Elfassy Co-founder, Snapshot Magnets