UNICORN AUTHORS CLUB
Our Community Principles
Our Club is a precious space for BIPOC authors and allies, and it’s up to each of us to protect and nurture it. This community exists to help us all learn and finish our books, not to distract or distress us.
Below are some general suggestions as well as the most up-to-date version of the Community Principles that you sign upon joining:
Encourage and support others. Please extend kindness and generosity as we all enter a tender learning space and a deep process of bringing our books to completion. Let’s save our judgement, snark, and unsolicited advice for the rest of the internet! Here, let’s find ways to help each other think bigger, reframe challenges, and stay curious.
Take space. Share generously, especially if your personality and/or relationship to privilege make you less inclined to speak. Your stories and experiences may be exactly what another member needs to hear to solve a problem or understand their own process better. This is a wonderful place to practice speaking up.
Make space. Listen actively, especially if your personality and/or relationship to privilege make it easier for you to speak. Pause to give others a fair turn. Please try to notice when you are thinking aloud and when you can pause to make space for others to share; share one thought, then step back and allow a gap, even a period of silence, to allow quieter people to enter the conversation. This is a wonderful place to practice listening actively to what others say, without interjecting.
Stay inclusive. Please beware of scapegoating and the formation of cliques. It’s natural that you will gravitate toward some members more than others, but try not to exclude or say mean things about other Club members behind their backs. We’re all sensitive writers, and people here are more likely to pick up on your energy than in other spaces.
Keep it confidential. We take privacy very seriously, and Team Unicorn will always keep all elements of our coaching/teaching relationship private. This does not restrict in any way your freedom to express your experiences and opinions of the Club.
Share your good news! Please share your outside events and offerings in the Clubhouse (but don’t add community members to your email lists without express permission).
Access and Inclusion
Our craft talks and guest talks are auto-captioned by Zoom for access purposes. We post recordings of the instructional portions, along with time-stamped auto-transcripts, as soon as feasible.
Other Zoom sessions, such as Café Unicorn and Solve Your Story group coaching, are not recorded to preserve members’ privacy, but auto-captioning is always available.
In addition to what you mention on your application or welcome survey, please let any member of Team Unicorn know of any additional accommodations that would help you; triggers to avoid; your pronouns; helpful/unhelpful language or behaviors on our part; etc. We want to work with you in the way that is most supportive of your writing, both in your private sessions and in all Unicorn Authors Club activities.
Community Problems
It’s natural that over a period of time, someone might irritate someone else. Tone is hard to communicate online; be gentle.
Also, trauma is present in our community. We may be triggered or trigger someone else. We are all working our way through and out of various oppression dynamics, and we are, each of us, works in progress.
In case of trouble, first please take a breath or a moment. Remember why you’re here. Re-focus on yourself and what will most help you to finish your book.
If you need a break from the group dynamic, please take space and time and be extra-wonderful to yourself. Don’t worry; you can catch up on everything later.
If you screw up, say sorry and mean it. Then step back and give the other person space. If you need to have a conversation to process what happened, don’t rely on the injured person to do this with you; find another source of support. The Four Parts of Accountability: How to Give a Genuine Apology by Mia Mingus is a useful framework.
Team Unicorn will be active and present in the Club, but please do feel free to call our attention to any issues that arise, and ask for support when you need it. We aren’t in all peer meet-ups. Even in spaces where we’re present, we may miss things. We want to hear about it. Really, this is not a place where you need to do battle. Let us help; please email Raychelle at ray@unicornauthors.club or Minal at m@unicornauthors.club.
Confidentiality
We take privacy very seriously, and Team Unicorn will always keep all elements of our coaching/teaching relationship private.
You agree to never, ever, share private information about other Club members or their writing, not even with your pet hamster.
This does not restrict in any way your freedom to express your experiences and opinions of your coaches and the Club as a whole.
Members Only
Spaces within the Club are available to and meant only for current members. For everyone’s safety, please don’t invite others to view, listen in, or join any discussion threads or events on the Unicorn Authors Club zoom link.
Documents, worksheets, lessons, and curricula that we share with you, either individually or in the Unicorn Authors Club, are proprietary intellectual property. You agree not to sell, distribute, email, or post them online either publicly or privately, in full or in part. You agree not to use them in your own coaching or teaching, in full or in part, whether or not you charge for those services.
That said, please do let us know if there’s a situation in which you’d like to share Unicorn materials; we love creating greater access for folks, and we’ll work it out.
Alums: Before you leave the Club, please be sure to download content that you’d like to keep. If you are in a peer circle, you’re welcome to continue meeting if you all agree; peer circles within the Club must have ONE (and only one!) current Unicorn Authors Club member who is the designated contact person. This person’s role is to liaise with Tria about the circle’s needs. If you are a contact person, please hand the role over to another member of your group before exiting the Club.
Peer circles that are mostly alums should eventually transition to an independent Zoom link and will not be open to new Club members joining. When you’re ready, please let us know and we’ll help you make the transition to a private circle.
The Big No-No’s
The Club has an “absolutely not” policy on hate speech, attacks on other members, and breaking the confidentiality of Club members. We are not interested in parsing where exactly the line is on these topics; just stay far, far away from the line and all will be well.
Violations of these no-no’s will result in immediate removal from the Club with no refund. Raychelle and Minal are the final decision-makers.