On Wednesday, April 8th I’m hosting my very first event… and I am insanely nervous. There are so many pieces falling into place, and so many people helping me to make my vision a reality, and I feel incredibly overwhelmed and grateful. It just says ‘m’ on the postcard I printed to distribute around town below, but it should be pm. Fitting for the event title I suppose.

 

Creative Life Event Postcard

Being helped overwhelms me. “What can I do to help?” and I have a tendency to shut down. And so for the last several days I’ve caught myself holding my breath. Breathing has become a conscious activity. If I don’t think about it, I stop doing it.

There will be three award-winning panelists in attendance — Raziel Reid (the 2014 governor general award winning YA novelist of ‘When Everything Feels like the Movies‘), Liz Levine (award winning producer of ‘Toad Road‘), and Matthew Kowalchuk (award winning director and writer of the feature film ‘Lawrence & Holloman‘) — and I will be asking them questions; my own questions and the audiences questions.

The topic for the evening is failures, breakthroughs and bravery – I choose the topic because I recently had a fairly significant failure and without that failure this event never would have happened. Actually… a lot of amazing opportunities would never have happened if I hadn’t failed and been pushed (shoved) off the path I thought I was happily skipping along. I’ve learned that sometimes failure can be a tool for seeing what you were previously ignoring.

Public Speaking

Oh my gosh… I remember those damn oral presentations from grade school. I both loved them and hated them. Why the conflicting emotions? Because speaking in front of a group of people scares me, and I love doing things that scare me. I love to challenge myself. I’ve never been a host, but tomorrow I will be whipping up a storm in the kitchen preparing cheese and crackers, white chocolate rice crispie squares, roasted chicpeas and chip dip.

I stopped breathing again. Wow. I am seriously overwhelmed with fear and excitement.

Which brings me to the second part of event: Personal Testimonials.

Sansitny Ruth of http://sot-photography.com/ will be photographing the event, and after the panel is done we will be inviting attendees to pose sharing a failure of their own. It’s going to be a GREAT BIG FAILURE PARTY, because I think it’s about time that we started celebrating our failures, because they can be so much more significant than success.

I also wanted to say, that this event would not be possible without the support of my incredible volunteers: Jeff Todd, Nicki Robertson, Style Stenberg, Sarah Hager, Victor Ayala, Chris Rogers, Sansitny Ruth, and School Creative – who have offered their location for the event.

There will also be a raffle with prizes from Harbour Dance, The Float House (so obviously need to thank them as well), plus an opportunity to get interviewed for the Creative Life interview series.

If you’d like to attend, you can RSVP by clicking here:

Tickets are $10 when purchased in advance through this meetup link, and $15 at the door – cash.

I also filmed a quick video where I talked about the event if you’re curious to watch it.

Thank you for all of your support!

Christine: I’m Hosting the Very First Creative Life Event on Wednesday. Currently, I am Remembering to Breathe
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bissonnette.cm@gmail.com'

Christine Bissonnette

I'm a spoken word artist and writer originally from Nova Scotia. In addition to my own private writing practice, I also works with adults and teens by facilitating the writing of their own spoken word poetry. Topics which fire me up are voice, perfectionism, and those parts of growth that don't follow a list. You can learn more about me at 9creativelives.com