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Hollay Ghadery’s Writing Space

By Hollay Ghadery

Where do I write?

You name it! The kitchen table, the bed, the bath, on walks or runs, riding shotgun in the car on the way to swimming or piano or drama lessons, or in my actual office: there’s no place I don’t write, which isn’t to say I don’t have favourite places to write (snuggled on the couch with the dogs or in the sunroom, for the record).

Having four young kids has forced me not to be precious about writing time or spaces—and I used to be debilitatingly precious about it, expecting the words to come only when I had set aside time for quiet and calm. So for many years, I wrote little. It took me a decade to crank out my first book and this taught me a lot about the grind of writing. Writing takes time, yes, but after a certain point, the only person not doing the work was me.

Eventually, I learned to stop romanticizing the writing process. Those thrilling flashes of verse and vision that proceed the physical act of writing can be quite romantic, but for me, the stringing together of many coherent words on a screen or page is…less magical—but not any less fulfilling. In fact, I’ve found taking the writing process out of the clouds and grounding it with me, wherever I am, makes it much more real, and the results, more attainable. It may have taken me 10 years to write my first book, but I finished my second and third in three years.

Hollay Ghadery is a multi-genre writer living in rural Ontario on Anishinaabe land. She has her MFA in Creative Writing from the University of Guelph. Her work has appeared in various literary journals and magazines. Fuse, her memoir of mixed-race identity and mental illness, was published by Guernica Editions’ MiroLand imprint in 2021. Her debut collection of poetry, Rebellion Box, is due out with Radiant Press in spring 2023 and her short-fiction collection, Widow Fantasies, is scheduled for release with Gordon Hill Press in 2024. 
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Photos provided by Hollay Ghadery

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