Centered 2024: A year of creative alchemy

Faceted crystal with shadow light and rainbow

In 2024, our monthly guest mentors lit up 12 different facets of the writing life. As I revisit our conversations and watch the replays, I’m struck by how each workshop has rippled through our community, sparking discussions, insights, and breakthroughs that continued to unfold throughout the year.

This is our wheel of the year (image below). I think of each monthly theme as a cluster of seeds floating off a dandelion head, finding a place to grow and become a new flower. In time-tested dandelion science labs, it’s been proven that when you make a wish before you blow on a dandelion seed-head, your wish will come true. Centered is a wish come true! We take a different approach to the creative writing over here, and reframe what it means to live a writing life. Our cadence is joyful, flexible, and sustainable. In Centered, we embrace the natural rhythm of seasons and creative cycles, welcoming one guest mentor each month and giving ourselves time to truly absorb their teaching through conversation and practice.

This slow, intentional approach to learning has created something rare: a thoughtful and non-competitive writing community that prioritizes openness and risk-taking. It gets better and better every year. I’m seeing lasting, embodied change in the lives of our members.

Centered 2024: Our Monthly Guest Mentors

I love a good online summit, because it gives you an immersive experience —a supersized amount of learning in a short amount of time can put you in an altered state, like when you go to a conference. But I sometimes feel overwhelmed when a tonne of great content floods me at once. How can I ever truly learn it and use it?

Centered’s monthly rhythm allows you to fully absorb and integrate each teaching. You can follow up with your fellow writers regularly through each season, to really understand and process your takeaways. The consistency helps you practice what you’re learning, and see the results of your practice over time.

Below is a recap of our guest mentors in Centered this year. Each workshop recording below lives in our library, where members can access them at any time, allowing for deep engagement with the material at their own pace.

Beginning Cycle: Awakening

Prosthetic Dreaming: How to use ChatGPT, Meditation, and Surrealism to Unlock Your Creativity with Henry Lien & Jerry Lee Davis

This groundbreaking workshop combines meditation, Surrealist techniques, and AI tools to help writers discover unexpected creative connections. Participants learn to use technology as an artistic lens, bridging ChatGPT’s outputs with their own subconscious mind through guided exercises and creative games.

Exercises in Memoir and Poetry: Finding Your POV in Shared Stories with Christina Cha

This intimate workshop uses poetic forms to revitalize familiar family stories and memories. Through ekphrastic poems and mindful writing practices, participants learn to approach personal narratives with fresh perspective while navigating the sensitive terrain of writing about living people.

Talking to the Dead as Freedom Practice: The Dead Talk Back with Charlotte Henay

This profound workshop explores grief, memory, and ancestral connection. Using poetry, autoethnography, and archival materials, participants learn to engage with ancestral wisdom as a way to transform trauma and imagine new possibilities.

Growth Cycle: Expanding

Playing with the Building Blocks of Your Stories with Jessica Westhead

This playful, hands-on workshop helps writers reconnect with their creative spark through handwritten exercises and zine-making. Participants learn to quiet their inner critics and rediscover the joy of imperfect creation while building stories they’re excited to tell.

Working With Dreams: A Resource For Writers with Darla Antoine

This enlightening workshop reveals how to harness dreams as a creative resource. Drawing from Indigenous wisdom, participants learn to categorize different types of dreams and intentionally cultivate them to solve specific storytelling challenges.

Returning From Character: How Writers Can Reconnect To Themselves with Carmen Grant

This distinctive workshop bridges acting and writing techniques, teaching writers to fully inhabit their characters while maintaining healthy boundaries. Through practical tools and guided meditation, participants learn to move gracefully between creative immersion and self-connection.

Abundance Cycle: Gathering

A Writer & Her Editor: Behind the Scenes in the Editorial Process with Heidi Reimer & Sarah Jackson

This insider’s look at the editorial process follows a debut novel’s journey from acquisition to publication. Author and writing coach Heidi Reimer joins Random House Canada editor Sarah Jackson to share candid insights about the editor-writer relationship.

The Nature of Pleasure with mira berlin & Savannah Lockie

This sensory-rich workshop explores pleasure through awareness, visual art, and writing. Through gentle embodied practices, participants discover how pleasure can guide their creative process, deepening their relationship with artistic expression.

Save the...Novel? with Francesca Lia Block

This dynamic workshop blends traditional plot structure with intuitive methods. Drawing on multiple storytelling frameworks and Tarot imagery, participants learn to create authentic, well-structured narratives that balance technical craft with creative freedom.

Integration Cycle: Deepening

Writing With Our Multi-Storied Bodies with Poh Lin Lee

This intriguing workshop reimagines our bodies as diverse communities of stories. Drawing from narrative therapy and intersectional feminism, participants learn to embrace both light and shadow aspects of self, creating inclusive conversations that honour complexity.

On Trust: A Conversation with Maia Toll

This illuminating conversation explores the essence of creative self-trust. Award-winning author Maia Toll guides writers through the delicate balance between fear and intuition, the art of channeling characters, and navigating the unknowns of the publishing world with courage.

On Honouring Our Writing Space with Farzana Doctor

This contemplative workshop explores the sacred spaces in a writer’s life. Author Farzana Doctor guides us in embracing fallow periods between projects, creating room for new learning, and finding spaciousness in our creative practice when facing frustration.