Mari Mendoza

Writing Coach, Facilitator and BIPOC Programming Manager

Mari loves giving writers permission to give their writing more tenderness.

After reading the Firefly newsletter and subscribing to Hello Writer for years, Mari took the plunge and came to our Bright Harvest retreat. She spent the weekend emerged in words and stories, even writing the hardest scene of her novel. All the while, she was focused on a bigger realization: writing coach was her dream job. She couldn’t take her eyes off the work that the coaches were doing, and longed to be in their shoes. A couple of months later when a coaching spot opened at Firefly, she knew it was for her.

Her relationship with writing starts all the way back in early childhood. As soon as she could read, Mari was creating stories in her head. She completed her first book at age six. Somewhere in her teen years, she absorbed the myth that she couldn’t make a life from writing. The words slowed.

A couple of years into her university degree she stumbled back into stories and it all clicked. She studied “the canon” as well as many diasporic Canadian writers, and wrote many, many essays — all of which are neatly stored in a three-ringed binder in her home in London, Ontario. When she finished her honours B.A. In English literature, she started a career as a freelance writer and editor.

For Mari, one of the keys to writing is permission. A turning point was when a Firefly facilitator gave her a slip that read, “Permission to call myself a writer.” At that moment she knew it was time to fully inhabit her writer identity, giving it the time and space it deserved. Now, as a coach, she loves watching for where a little permission will help people experience the wonder, healing and exhilaration of getting words on paper. In her words, “If you’re a breather, you’re a writer.”

Mari has a bright enthusiasm that beams through a room, and she effortlessly draws other people into that light. Her style of leadership is warm, comfortable, and very, very fun. She completed her Firefly coach training in the spring of 2020, and in 2023 she took on the additional role of managing Firefly’s BIPOC Programming. In the last couple years she’s written historical fiction, YA dystopia, and hundreds of 100-word stories about her life.

She also teaches at Fanshawe College and works at her local indie bookstore part-time.

A perfect Saturday for Mari would include all-day breakfast at a local diner, hiking with her husband, 2 kids and 2 yorkies, and then curling up with a book and chocolate undisturbed for a few hours, letting the world slip away.

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