Hollay Ghadery is an award-winning Iranian-Canadian multi-genre writer living in rural Ontario on Anishinaabe land. Fuse, her acclaimed memoir of mixed-race identity and mental illness, was published by Guernica Editions’ MiroLand imprint in 2021 and won the 2023 Canadian Bookclub Award for Nonfiction/Memoir. Her debut collection of poetry, Rebellion Box, was released with Radiant Press in April 2023. Hollay's short-fiction collection, Widow Fantasies, was released by Gordon Hill Press in 2024. In February 2026, her debut novel, The Unravelling of Ou, will be published by Palimpsest Press. Hollay is a board member of the League of Canadian Poets, the co-chair of the League's BIPOC committee, as well as the Poet Laureate of the region in which she lives, and a host on The New Books Network. Hollay is also a host of HOWL—the literary arts show—on 89.5 CIUT FM, a member of The Writers Union of Canada, the Creative Nonfiction Collective, and the National Book Critics Circle.
Praise for The Unravelling of Ou:
“Wildly original and captivating. A phenomenal examination of female shame, sexuality, queerness, motherhood, and intimacy, Hollay Ghadery writes with sensitivity and resonating beauty through an unconventional narrator: a sock puppet, Ecology Paul, who delivers the emotional coming-of-age tale of young Minoo with whimsy and emotional depth. Minoo feels trapped in her body and guilt over its sensual pleasures, as she grapples with a complicated relationship with a traditional Iranian mother. In The Unravelling of Ou, the immigrant Canadian narrative is dismantled, and headstrong mothers and daughters clash with patriarchal structures that want to control their bodies, their vanity, and their desires. Vulnerable, brave, and heartbreaking, this powerful novel asks: how do women function in a world that is not designed to love them back? How do oppressed individuals understand and ultimately save themselves? Ghadery delivers answers in a lyrical and imaginative debut.”
—Lindsay Wong, Villain Hitting for Vicious Little Nobodies
Praise for Fuse: A Memoir of Mixed-Race Identity and Mental Illness:
“I cannot find enough superlatives to describe the savage clarity, the gorgeous language, and the remarkable depth of insight contained in this courageous book. It took my breath away.”—Diane Schoemperlen, Governor General Award winner and author of This is Not My Life: A Memoir of Love, Prison, and Other Complications.
Buy Fuse. Shop local at IndieBookstores.ca.
Praise for Widow Fantasies:
“The sassy-voiced stories in Widow Fantasies seem to melt in your mouth like fruit gelees—yet the taste of their observation lasts. I savoured them all.” — Molly Peacock, author of The Widow’s Crayon Box. Buy Widow Fantasies. Shop local at IndieBookstores.ca.
Praise for Rebellion Box:
“There’s a willingness to go anywhere and meet anything head-on throughout Hollay Ghadery’s Rebellion Box. Her extraverted poems seek out the very roughest edges of her subjects: parenthood, race, and history, and stay there steadfastly. Beginning in minutiae and building out, the world of the book feels massive; spectacular with sadness and towering with joy."—Jacob McArthur Mooney, Don’t Be Interesting. Buy Rebellion Box. Shop local at IndieBookstores.ca.
