What is Softer?
Softer is an exhale, a place to land. Expect personal essays & articles about understanding and embracing the world, in all its unexpected changes and bittersweet beauty, with the intention of staying open, compassionate, soft.
Who am I?
Hello! I’m Halena (she/her), a policy analyst, researcher, writer, and facilitator working in community development and advocacy. I am also a dancer, burlesque performer, choreographer, and producer. I am Autistic and hard of hearing.
I have a Masters degree in Public Policy, two Bachelors degrees, and completed study-abroad programs in Norway and Cuba. I’ve been active in social justice movements including human rights organizing, international solidarity movements, and food sovereignty and climate change action for over ten years. I grew up training in dance styles including ballet, jazz, and tap, and in adulthood began training in and performing cabaret, Latin dance styles, and burlesque.
As a writer, I have been published in Salty, Canada’s National Observer, Loose Lips Magazine, Eco-Anxious Stories, The Tyee, The Vancouver Sun, The Times-Colonist, Briarpatch Magazine, Herizons Magazine, and more.
All of my experiences and identities shape how I see the world and move through it, as well as how I am perceived.
I am a white settler born and raised in Regina, Saskatchewan (Treaty 4 territory) and currently based in Vancouver, British Columbia, on the unceded territories of the xʷməθkwəy̓əm (Musqueam), Skwxwú7mesh (Squamish), and sel̓íl̓witulh (Tsleil-waututh) Nations.
