ABOUT

Jill Margo

The short version

I work at the intersection of creativity and justice-based self-help. Where traditional self-help says we need fixing, justice-based self-help says the systems need fixing.

I’m a gentle guide and fierce advocate, big-hearted helper, holder of space, and facilitator of goodness.

I’m also a peer (not an authority) who is devoted to writing and making pressed flower art.

I have over 15 years of experience working in the literary, visual, and performing arts (I’ve also worked as a mascot, bouncer, and tea leaf reader, but those are stories from other times.)

My Story

I was nearly 40 when I left my MFA program. When I say “left” I mean I quit. I quit because the program was causing me harm. This was after two years—following four years prior in a BFA program—when everyone else in my cohort had already graduated. I left with a stomach-churning amount of student loan debt and a lot of bad feelings about all the snobbery, competition, institutional oppression, and so on that I’d encountered while in school.

While I had learned to hone my craft, I had no idea how to build a creative practice that would fit my life—a life that required money and included chronic illness. A life, like anyone else’s, that chucked all kinds of things at me that seemed higher in priority than creative work (yes, even the housework).

What had felt wrong and had been missing from my university experience  gave me ideas about how to approach creative practice more holistically, generously, and healthily, which is where I began to direct my attention. The Creative Good, in a lot of ways, is as a corrective to my university experience. It’s what I needed as a creator and couldn’t find. It has been iterative, and it evolves with me.

All my work is based on a framework that I’ve developed, tested, and refined over time. To learn more about my framework, who I work with, and how, please visit my Start Here page.

Areas of Ongoing Study and Focus

creativity | developing/reigniting and maintaining a creative practice | life design | self and collective care | liberatory practices | nervous system health and regulation | seasonal living | slow living | anti-capitalism and anti-hustle/grind culture | intersectional feminism

Some personal details about me

(so you know who you’d be working with)

I’m of European descent—mostly Scottish, Scandinavian, and English. I was born in the United States in a small town along the Columbia River but have lived most of my life on the west coast of Canada.

I’m a perimenopausal woman of a higher body weight who lives with chronic/autoimmune illnesses, chronic pain, and mobility challenges (I use a cane), which means I’ve been on the receiving end of a lot of sexism, anti-fat bias, and ableism. Having these marginalized identities has shown me how much we still need to fight for our collective liberation.

I have a sensitive temperament and am an empath who requires a peaceful, quiet environment. I’m a deep thinker and slow mover. I’m also an ambivert, but only because I’m a Leo (with a ton of planets in Cancer and Scorpio), otherwise I think I’d be an introvert.

I’m child-free by choice and married to Andrew, a man who wanted to be “an artist or a dog” when he grew up (he’s a writer and artist who loves head scratches—he was also involved in the first iteration of The Creative Good back when it was a bricks and mortar business).

 I’m a homebody to my core and have the privilege of working out of an incredible home studio in the “owner’s suite” of an old mansion on a 0.7-acre idyllic city property situated within a remnant Garry oak ecosystem.

I’m into meditation and other care practices, seasonal and moon cycles, reading, playing games, doing puzzles, baking, gardening, organic-style interior design, DIY projects, and hosting friends. It’s all very wholesome and regulating for my nervous system.

All-in-all, I’m driven by love, justice, aesthetic splendour, and the desire to get comfy.