Hollay Ghadery
Writer/Poet
“My work often grapples with the damage caused by socially imposed and enforced identities, whether they be sexual, racial, or defined by how well one fits into a neurotypical framework. Whether it’s through my poetry, fiction, or creative nonfiction, I work toward exploring the indefinable radiance of being that so much of society wants to deny people who fit outside its narrow margins.” – Hollay Ghadery
Hollay Ghadery is a multi-genre writer living in rural Ontario on the traditional land of the Anishinaabe people. Ghadery is a proud Iranian-Canadian, who grew up in Uxbridge Ontario. With her MFA in creative writing from the University of Guelph, Ghadery has displayed her poetry, short stories, and personal essays in literary journals and magazines worldwide.
Fuse, her acclaimed memoir of mixed-race identity and mental illness, was published in 2021 by Guernica Editions. Her debut collection of poetry, Rebellion Box, was released with Radiant Press in April 2023; its title poem won The New Quarterly’s Nick Blatchford Occasional Verse Prize in 2022. Ghadery’s short-fiction collection, Widow Fantasies, is due out with Gordon Hill Press in 2024. She is currently working on a novel and she swears she will never work on another.
Ghadery loves to explore untold and underrepresented stories and perspectives. As the Poet Laureate of Scugog Township, she will be creating poetry to celebrate and commemorate the township as well as the people within it.
