The Light Returning 2026
Annual Solstice Writing Cohort with Tiffany Sostar
Reflect and gather
December 21, 2026–January 1, 2027
As the winter solstice marks the beginning of the light returning to the northern hemisphere, this cohort is an invitation to reflect on and share (if you’d like) your stories from the past year: the light and the dark, the soft and the hard stories.
The prompts and space within this cohort can help weave a more complicated, nuanced, richly described tapestry of the year, one that we can look back on and find ourselves in, not as passive recipients of collective trauma but as people with hopes for ourselves and our communities, with skills to navigate hard times, and with agency.
Each day, you'll receive reflective writing prompts delivered to your email inbox. How (and if) you engage with those prompts is up to you.
Connecting to community in expectation-laden times
One goal of this cohort is to offer a way to feel connected to community over a holiday season that, for some of us, can include tension, disconnection, and a feeling of alienation.
This stretch of time between the solstice and the calendar year turning over can hold a lot of expectations, a lot of dominant discourses about family. Some of us re-enter (by choice or not) a 'closet' during this season because our whole selves are not welcome.
Even for those of us who are not experiencing distance from family, this can be a hard season. Grief hits harder when the world is telling you you're supposed to be celebrating. This cohort offers a counterweight to the heavy drag of those expectations and contexts.
Reflective, narrative writing prompts for each day
This cohort gathers on the solstice, and at the end of the cohort to conclude our time together. Additional gathering times may be added, though all gatherings are optional.
Writing prompts will be sent over email. There is no expectation to share your work, though sharing is welcomed.
Note: The Light Returning is open to participants of every age, gender, orientation, ability, neurotype, race, class, body size, and experience with narrative practice and/or writing. You do not need to be a published or experienced writer to join us—everyone has a unique and valuable voice, and this is not a space where your grammar or writing will be ‘critiqued’.
Register sustainably
In the interest of economic justice, we offer the following ecosystem tiers for this writing cohort:
Support Access: Pay it Forward — $60 For those able to contribute a bit more.
Support Access: Full Cost — $40 For those able to contribute the full running cost.
Supported Access: Community Assisted — $20 For under-resourced community members for whom paying the full amount would create financial hardship.
Not sure which tier to choose? Head to our ticketing platform and click "Info" next to the ticket title for guidance. Registration listed in Canadian dollars (CAD).
