How long have you been a member of NOWW?
 
Member of NOWW for over 20 years.
 
What do you normally write?
 
Genres and formats of my writing: I write mostly poetry and short fiction. Recently I’ve been trying my hand at creative non-fiction and have started a blog (www.awonderinglittlevoice.com).  The posts will be short essays about things that spark my curiosity and wonder – like the tree frogs that showed up in my garden this summer or the symbolism of fire and light.
 
And who are some of your favourite authors?
 
My all-time favourite writers are Mavis Gallant and Bruno Schulz. I love Gallant’s subtlety and humour; her stories seem to unfold so naturally, you are not aware of any art or forced structure. On the other end of the realism spectrum, Schulz, a Polish Jew, described everyday life in a small, provincial town in the early 1900s as a journey through a mythical labyrinth where beds “disordered from the weight of dreams” stand “like deep boats waiting to sail into the dank and confusing labyrinths of some dark starless Venice.” He captures the magical thinking of a child’s mind like no other writer I’ve come across. I also like Colm Toibin, Don Delillo, Michael Christie, Frances Itani, and Neil Gaimen. There are many others. In general, I like writing that has a unique perspective or voice, and I don’t mind if there isn’t much plot as long as I feel the characters are real, if perhaps enigmatic, people.
 
 
Let’s get to know you a bit better.  Tell us a bit about yourself.
 
I started writing, well, when I first learned how to make letters on a page. Journals, scrapbooks with notes and pictures of what I’d seen in nature. I was part of the Pulp Fiction Writers years ago – a group of us had so enjoyed one of Rosalind Maki’s writing courses at Con College, we got together to self-publish several chapbooks of our work. I’ve submitted several entries to the NOWW contest. (got 3rd in poetry in 2010!). My goals now are to go back to some work I think is worth revising, see what I can do to improve it and finding a home for it, and work on my blog of course. I write almost everyday, even if it’s a simple journal entry. And I follow Jo Fiorito’s advice and keep a journal of what I’m reading – what I like about it, what does or doesn’t work for me.  My biggest challenge is fighting writer’s block – that cloud of razors in my brain that shreds to pieces any new idea as soon as it appears. Two things that help: reading poetry first thing in the morning (NOT the news) and forcing myself to write “pages” as I call them – just sitting down with a pad of paper and filling two to three pages with whatever comes to mind.
 
 
And where does your inspiration come from?
 
I’m inspired by nature and science. I like people watching too and am a bit mystified by today’s identity politics. How can you sum up a person with a few labels? Each one of us is a mix of contradictions and mysteries that defy labeling and can only be expressed through good art, like some of the writers I’ve mentioned above have the ability to do.
 
Can we see you at any upcoming NOWW events?
 
I’m looking forward to NOWWs upcoming workshops. I always come away inspired, ready to face another blank page.
 
Where can we learn more about you and your writing?
 
(See blog mentioned above)
 
And to end things off, tell us something surprising about yourself.
 
Surprising fact: In my next life I’d like to come back as a jazz pianist.
 

​
How long have you been a member of NOWW?  Since 1997-98 – Deborah de Bakker invited me to join and give a workshop at Confederation College.  Jean E Penziwol was my student there, and protégée, let us say.
 
What do you normally write?  I write it all!  Lately my focus is poetry and poetic inquiry (a form of academic scholarship).
 
And who are some of your favourite authors?  
Here are some who come to mind:  Margaret Mahy, Roald Dahl, Aristotle, Thomas Merton, Isabel Allende, Kasuo Ishiguro, Margaret Atwood, Robertson Davies, Jane Urquhart, Elizabeth Bishop, Anne Wilkinson, Molly Peacock, Jan Zwicky, Yann Martel, and André Alexis.  The last two came up out of my book club, which has always encouraged me to keep up with literary culture.  Otherwise, I follow an idiosyncratic route, linking from books I’ve already read and liked, or else from an idea that comes to mind.  For example, one summer I read nothing but dystopias.  And I must also shout out to our regional writers; they are fam-jam!
 
Let’s get to know you a bit better. Tell us a bit about yourself! 
Although I started my arts career teaching and writing for children, my interest in BIG IDEAS has led me into poetic discourse.  All the same, small ideas make for good poetry, too.  Poetry is really just a way of understanding life.  When I say poetry, I don’t distinguish it greatly from story, which is just a synonym for how humans live life,
 
What’s your writing like? 
For some time now, I have been absorbed by philosophical ideas such as:  How is art a way of knowing?  How does a metaphysics (personal and collective beliefs about reality and being) contribute to a grammar of art?  These questions might seem abstract and abstruse, but they are ultimately what is behind poetics, the theory and craft of literature.
 
And where does your inspiration come from or who inspires your writing?  
In terms of theories of art, I have been following the ideas of Umberto Eco, Northrop Fry, Elliot Eisner, Suzanne Langer, Giles Deleuze, Paul Ricoeur, Maurice Merleau-Ponty, Richard Kearney and David Abram.  An eclectic crew.  One of them said this:  “Because we are in the world, we are condemned to meaning, and we cannot say or do anything without its acquiring a name in history.”

Can we see you at any upcoming NOWW events?  
I will be leading a free workshop on Sonnet Writing on January 25th. 
 
Where can we learn more about you and your writing?  
I have poetry published in a number or regional anthologies.  I have two children’s novels, Dream Dad and Summer Dragons with Dundurn Press.  My biggest social media presence is on Facebook, where I sometimes post poetry for my five friends.
 
And to end things off, tell us something surprising about yourself!  
I can stand on my head.  I still have all my own teeth.  Iay ikelay otay eakspay inay igpay atinlay.


​The Hosiery of Convention
 
Billy Collins says it’s nothin: just
a word, and then another, line by line
until you’re done; fourteen, thirteen, twelve
eleven; rock it with your thoughts, not iambs;
 
charms and pics instead of scansion; pitch
the hosiery of convention; ditch that girl
or boy’s dear ransome; blow out the blighted
pizzle, plant another row to-pickle.
 
But if the modern race ain’t for you; if
free-lovin verse has passed you; if you’d learn
the ease of rules; if you’d seek the wit
of fools; then come and sing a bygone song.
 
Within the sonnet's well-ploughed plot of ground,
let us reverse, where words of worth be found.
 
--Holly Haggarty
 

After the first few years, I never told my husband about the dream. I had seen him wince when I described the garden house. I realized he considered my dream an unconscious reproach against him for our crazy nomadic marriage. Neil is a mining engineer and we travelled the world together. But buying a house was impossible, not in the jungles of Ecuador or the mountains of Tasmania or the deserts of Arizona. So, for twenty-five years, I never mentioned the dream again even though its occurrence, every few weeks or so, gave me a happy-morning feeling.

The dream starts with an ordinary Canadian street and a front garden of foxglove, daisies, and roses. I love flowers. I always attempted a garden wherever we lived. At our mountain house in Kashmir, I grew blue poppies in painted ceramic tubs but abandoned them when we fled the insurrection. The nasturtiums beside our stone cottage in Scotland cheered a drizzly landscape. In eastern Turkey, I defended my plants from wandering goats. In truth, I loved the challenges of life with my handsome, adventurous husband.

As I breathe the scent deep of the flowers into my lungs, I admire the tall, stately house of cream stucco and green shutters. I drift towards it along the garden path. I mount the wide steps, and gently open the front door. All is silent. Sunlight dapples the hardwood floors leading to a comfortable living room with blue Oriental rugs, deep bookcases and pale leather furniture.

Here the dream ends. Happiness flows through me when I wake, ready to embrace the challenges of a new day.

But now, in Ottawa, I’m up early to drive Neil to the airport, his last northern trip. In a month, our wanderings end. Our condo in Vancouver, bought for our retirement years, awaits us.

Halfway back to our apartment, I brake hard. Is it possible? The house is identical. Lacy dawn shadows cross cream stucco, green shutters, and wide welcoming steps. Dazed, I get out and walk toward the garden. The honeyed smell of flowers enchants me. I float up the path.

An elderly woman in a long blue nightdress appears in the doorway, her face contorted, her hand over her mouth.

 “You’re real?”

The spell shatters.

“I know you,” she says, pointing her finger. “You live in my dreams. Year after year, you walk through my garden straight into my house.”

We stare at each other. “Why not come in,” she says with a half-smile, holding open the door. “You’ve been here before. Maybe now you’ll find what you’re looking for.”

​I step forward. I’m shaking. My dream has become a mystery, a strange step into another dimension. My Buddhist friends would call it a rare glimpse into “the reality beyond reality”. The early sun brightens, outlining the woman on the steps as fixed and immobile as a figure in a tapestry.

Her hand beckons.
​
I turn and run for the car.
​