The F-You Project Book Launch

Sometimes words just aren’t enough. On rare occasions, there are just no words to define a moment, a memory or an emotion. But for 22 Canadian youth who found the right words, they were able to heal and capture a moment of clarity by sharing their stories of forgiveness in the F-You Project: The Forgiveness Project – Memories of Violence and Compassion book, which launched September 5 at Toronto’s 918 Bathurst, Culture, Arts, Media and Education Centre.
“I was told once that sharing stories is probably one of the most intimate and giving experiences that you can do, because it is giving a piece of you. That requires a lot of courage and we want to commend everybody for their courage tonight,” says Wan Luv, the event’s host, who spoke to a packed room of supporters of the book’s various authors and founder Tara Muldoon, who began the F-You movement three years ago in spite of her own journey of forgiveness through personal trauma.
“This has been a dream come true both for myself and for the writers,” an emotional Muldoon shared. “I think it says a lot about us as a generation and who we are as people that we’re here celebrating a book on forgiveness… I wanted to make sure that if we are glamourizing certain things, that we are also having a conversation about the repercussions.”
At the launch, many of the writers presented their pieces by taking everyone in the room on an emotional journey together as they shared testimonies of personal reflection and readings from the book.
Canadian hip-hop artist L The 12th Letter shared with the audience that he had turned Muldoon down multiple times when asked to contribute to the book, before finally submitting his beautifully written piece, “Words”, on the last day of deadline. Toronto writer Jonathon “Bizz” Brown broke down while reading his emotional story titled, “SeeSaw of Support” where he spoke on intimate details about his family life that left an emotional blanket of support throughout the building as the room sat quiet, just listening to a man sharing his reality.
Contributing writer Sahar Talebi spoke about her written piece titled “Barrel Of The Gun” with a moving speech, touching everyone in the room with her genuine words. “To me, forgiveness is more than just a process where you eradicate these feelings of rage and anger and move on from whatever the issue may have been as a result of time. To me, it’s an amazingly complex, extraordinary act of super natural, where you’re actually able to feel the tangible side of what it means to be involved in something that might be so horrific,” Talebi shared before stating that we are all worthy to forgive and move on.
After receiving a signed letter from the mayor’s office, Muldoon announced that this is just the first book of many, and that she is already accepting submissions for the next instalment on grief, which she hopes to have out in the New Year.

F-You Book Review

“Sometimes our deepest pains become our most beautiful lessons,” writes Tara Muldoon, founder of F-You: The Forgiveness Project, in her new book F-You: The Forgiveness Project – Memoirs on Violence and Compassion.

Muldoon created a dialogue through the F-You Project defining forgiveness and evolving trauma into healing through a discussion group, which became a movement, which in turn led to the F-You book. The volume features 21 pieces of writing from talented young people, including poetry and personal reflections on forgiveness, as these young minds share insight on their journey to recovery through their unique stories and powerful perspectives.

With project co-signs from Manifesto’s former Executive Director, Che Kothari, super-producer Boi-1da and The Globe and Mail, the book is sure to create a conversation about the importance of forgiveness, word-by-word and page-by-page.

Canadian hip-hop icon, Kardinal Offishall sets the tone of the captivating book with a well-written, realistic foreword as a voice for the rap community, taking responsibility for the problems the music industry causes and urging readers to set goals in order to begin to make a real change so that these communities shy away from violence.

Muldoon then takes over the pen, introducing the book by sharing her own struggle to recover from her personal life traumas through forgiveness and credits the movement for being able to let go in a beautifully honest testimony, before turning the remainder of the book over to the young writers.

Canadian hip-hop artist, L The 12th Letter draws a powerful parallel between bullets and words in his intriguing piece titled, “Words”, Jessica Kaya pulls at the heartstrings while writing a genuine piece on suicide, loneliness and mental illness, while Sahar T captures a shooting victim, speaking beyond the grave to his shooter in the passionately-written, “Barrel of the Gun”.

The book even leaves pages at the end for personal reflection notes so that readers can use the book as a tool during their own process of forgiveness.

F-You: The Forgiveness Project – Memoirs on Violence and Compassion is an innovative and passionate project. While highlighting the talented writing skills of each author involved, it is also sure to open eyes and minds on reasons for the current state of violence and the importance of letting go.