Sharon Berg Interviews Hollay Ghadery

(Gordon Hill Press, 2024)

Hollay Ghadery

Sharon Berg:             Thank you for agreeing to do this interview with me. Your book Widow Fantasies, as a back cover blurb indicates, certainly presents ‘a symphony of voices’ in its collection of flash fiction. The prose is fluid and filled with witticisms, alluring images, and it takes kicks at the status quo. I found that it isn’t a book to be read in one sitting, but that only meant greater enjoyment as I thought about the stories between periods of reading. How do you see your audience reading the book? All in a sitting? One story at a time?

Hollay Ghadery:       I don’t really have a prescriptive recommendation for how other people should read the book but I can say that I imagine I would have read it like you: a story at a time. Though I have had people tell me they read it in one sitting. There are 33 stories in the book but I believe it’s only around the 100-page mark. But as you’ve said in the question, there are a lot of voices in the collection, and I think reading it all at once might be clamourous for me, because my head is busy and loud enough. Still, other people may enjoy the experience of reading it all at once. I am thrilled that people engage with my work at all, with so many wonderful books to read.

SB:      The stories in Widow Fantasies are quite different from each other. It must have been difficult to structure the book in terms of discovering their order. Were you concerned about how these stories would behave together? Can you reveal how you discovered the proper place for each story among its neighbours?

HG:    I love this question. Here’s the thing: I can take little credit for the ordering. I had them ordered in the order I wrote them—which is not the order they are in now. When I felt I had done as much as I could do with the stories, I made one of the best decisions I could have: I hired an editor. In this case, the wonderful Kimmy Beach. Kimmy helped me tighten up and polish the stories, and provided invaluable suggestions for sequencing. I wasn’t actually concerned about the order, though, because I’d heard so much praise for Kimmy, and I felt my scrappy little stories were in good hands. It’s unlikely I could have ordered them as well on my own. I think I learned a lot from Kimmy and may even be able to do a better job of sequencing stories myself, if I ever write another collection of them.

SB:      One of the many surprises in Widow Fantasies is your facility with endings. You have a knack for leaving the story at the right time, whether with a twist, or through a suggestion of what comes next. This makes me wonder about the planning that goes into a flash fiction piece. Do you often arrive at the ending before the beginning? How do your storylines usually present themselves?

HG:    Thank you for this observation! You have hit on my tactic exactly: I usually write toward an ending I already know. For instance, there’s a story in the collection called “Pith.” It’s about a woman who goes to strange measures to try to revitalize her marriage. The story didn’t begin with a character or a setting, but my desire to try to write a story with a twist ending. I can’t speak to how other people write twists, but I needed to know what the twist was before I began writing. One night, when opening a book I’d just picked up from the library, the answer came to me. Or, more accurately, it fell on me. Presto: “Pith” was born.
 
Several stories in the collection (including “Pith”) are also the result of exercises in David Galef’s short and sweet book on writing flash fiction, Brevity. It was in Galef’s book that the twist ending was discussed, and I really wanted to try it. Brevity also gives samples of stories by masters of flash fiction who exemplify whatever lesson Galef is teaching in a given chapter, which was super helpful.
 
SB:      Every book takes a stance in the midst of the contemporary social and political concerns it presents. How do you describe the position of Widow Fantasies and its areas of concern in today’s world?

HG:    Widow Fantasies embodies an inclusive idea of what it means to be a woman, and while not a lot of what I do in my work is intentional, this was. I have been and am countless people in my life and some of my past selves would feel wonder or shock or frustration at who I am now, just as my current self feels those same things about certain past selves. I wanted a multitude of people to see themselves in these stories, and I hope they do.
 
Another thing: I also took Iranian women and put them in rural settings. I have noticed a tendency in stories for immigrants or children of immigrants to live in cities, and that’s not my experience. I was born in a city but did a lot of my growing up in a rural area. I live in a rural area now. This is my life and my experience in living. Admittedly, the racial or cultural backgrounds of many of my characters are not even apparent, I don’t think, but in some stories, I wanted it to be obvious. I wanted readers to see these women living their lives outside of cities. There are stories of Iranian families who live in Canadian cottage country, and Iranian women living on farms and in small towns. I didn’t want the fact that they lived there to be the point of discussion; I just wanted to show that they live there, period.
 
SB:      Titles are often difficult to come up with. Some authors seem to begin there. What was your experience in developing a title for Widow Fantasies?
 
HG:     Coming up with the title for Widow Fantasies was super easy. A therapist introduced me to the concept when I was struggling with daydreaming about planning my husband’s funeral, which I started doing after a few years of marriage and a few kids. It is a term that is used to describe when a woman starts fantasizing about their partner not being there anymore. Sometimes, often when the partner is abusive, they even fantasize about killing them. To be clear: my husband wasn’t abusive and I was not dreaming of harming him in any way. I was having these fantasies because I was overwhelmed and my husband wasn’t lifting his share (or really, any share) of the domestic load. I felt I had a dependent, not a partner, and I was desperate to alleviate that burden. So I didn’t want to kill him, I just wanted him not to be draining me. I was also so disturbed by these thoughts that I talked to a therapist. When I learned of the term, widow fantasies, I was delighted. What a wonderfully oxymoronic term! I didn’t know it was going to be the title of a collection or even a story then, but it stuck with me: the way it pulls at itself. That tension between the words! It was perfect for a book that looks at how women use fantasy to subvert the often-oppressive confines of their world.
 
I’d only start writing the stories that would become Widow Fantasies years after that therapist visit, and years after I’d talked to my husband about what I was feeling. (We’re still married.) I needed to do the work to deal with those feelings in a therapeutic setting to be able to see clearly enough to create the stories.
 
SB:      Is this a book that seemed to fall onto the page quickly, as if it were channelled, or did you need to put a lot of effort into its structure? Was there a developmental process? Please elaborate.

HG:    It came to me quickly. The first draft of Widow Fantasies was done in less than a year. I’d finish one story, think I’d have a break, but then another story would start forming in my mind. It was exciting, but also, exhausting. The voices came to me and felt relentless. I find this is often the way it is with fiction for me. My novel came in less than a year, too. I get stuck in these worlds and need to work my way out of them. Poetry and personal essays, on the other hand, tend to feel less demanding. I suppose because they are more closely linked to my reality and not some alternate realm I am visiting, that is taking me away, however pleasantly, from my life and its many demands.
 
SB:      Authors often speak of the necessity of writing multiple drafts for a book. What is your experience? Did the length of the book change dramatically at any point in time after you finished the first draft? Please explain.

HG:    Each story was sent to beta readers after I wrote it. Sometimes, after the first draft. (Shout out to Lucy E.M. Black and Nancy Jo Cullen!) The book was edited in bursts as I went. When the book was completed—when all the stories were together—I don’t think it went through more than perhaps one or two other major overhauls. I did throw in one story, “Khoshgel”, after the book was accepted, but aside from that it didn’t change length. My goal was to get the book to around 100 pages, and I did that.

SB:      Books can be turned into television shows, movies, or radio scripts. They’re also frequently translated into other languages. What would you say is a key point in Widow Fantasies that shouldn’t be lost if it’s converted to another medium or language?
 
HG:    What a fun question! And a good one. I would say that a key point in Widow Fantasies is not to turn away from the darkness—not to try to make it lighter. I don’t think the stories are overly depressing as a whole, but there’s certainly a gothic feel to them, and I’d want that preserved. Gothic literature embraces unease and love and loss—so many paradoxes. That blanket of being unsettled outside of oneself and, hopefully, one’s preconceptions, is important to the stories since they actively encourage readers to think of women’s lives and women’s narratives differently.
 
SB:      Readers are often interested in knowing how much of a work is invented and how much is autobiographical. Would you care to share your approach/thoughts on this aspect of your readers’ curiosity?
 
HG:    There are some stories in this collection that are so close to being autobiographical, I probably could have called them flash nonfiction. For instance, the story “Well Enough Alone”, about a woman who has part of her tongue removed. Save a few minor details, that’s me. That’s my life. There are others that have almost no root in my life experiences, but are reflections of a feeling I’ve had. “Nothing Will Save Your Life But This Might Buy You Time” is one of those stories. I never had experiences like either of the women in the story, but I do know what it’s like to feel that womanhood is a noose. Some stories fall somewhere in between. (See: “Like Your Shit Don’t Stink” and “Jaws.”) Maybe one day I will venture further out of myself, but so far, all my writing circles my multitudes.
 
SB:      How do you think Widow Fantasies should be assessed for its value? Does it offer practical points for further exploration? describe an important cultural event? offer a compelling message about social awareness? Or does it describe your personal aesthetic?

HG:     I think Widow Fantasies might be tough to assess, but getting people to engage with it is half the battle. Short fiction—compared to novels—has a small readership. And then you have the fiction in Widow Fantasies, which is flash fiction. If people who do read short stories pick up this book, they might find the brevity challenging. But this is the point. I want people to question what they expect from narratives, and especially women’s narratives. By extension, I want us to explore what we expect from women, period. All my stories have a plot, and a conflict, and even a resolution—though sometimes the resolution is meant to happen off page, in the reader’s mind. Flash fiction, and my flash fiction especially, asks that readers stay engaged and read thoughtfully. There aren’t as many words so I had to make each word really count.
 
SB:      How does this book fit it the stream of your literary works? Is there a fundamental difference between Widow Fantasies and your prior work?
 
HG:    All my work is deeply feminist and it looks at the ways in which women live in the world. It is also interested in the domestic life—which is where all life begins. It’s not only where life starts but where we are formed.  This collection, however, began as an offshoot of my usual realm of exploration: namely, how women uphold the patriarchy. This is a theme I really delve into in my next book, a novel, which is coming out in 2026 with Palimpsest Press. The novel is narrated entirely from the perspective of a sock puppet. This sock puppet is a conduit for a woman who is working through some difficult life experiences—among them, a strained relationship with her mother. As a mother myself, I am invariably interested in the ways in which we make decisions for our daughters that we think are protecting them, but are actually just hurting them and holding them back.
 
SB:      Thank you Hollay, so much, for your deep reflections during this interview. They really elaborate how important the job of story-writing is, and how honest a storyteller must be with themselves in order to improve their work.

​Hollay Ghadery is a multi-genre writer living in Ontario on Anishinaabe land. She has her MFA in Creative Writing from the University of Guelph. Fuse, her memoir of mixed-race identity and mental health, was released by Guernica Editions in 2021 and won the 2023 Canadian Bookclub Award for Nonfiction/Memoir. Her collection of poetry, Rebellion Box was released by Radiant Press in 2023, and her collection of short fiction, Widow Fantasies, was released with Gordon Hill Press in fall 2024. Hollay is the host of the 105.5 FM Bookclub and a podcast host on NBN, as well as a co-host on HOWL on CIUT 89.5 FM. She is also the Poet Laureate of Scugog Township. Learn more about Hollay at www.hollayghadery.com.

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​Sharon Berg attended the Banff School of Fine Arts Writing Studio in 1982 and was accepted to Banff’s Leighton Artist Colony in 1987. She is also an alumni of Humber College’s Writing Program. She did her B.A. in Indigenous Studies at Laurentian U, followed by her B.Ed for Primary Education at U of T. Her M.Ed focused on First Nations Education at York U, and her D.Ed focused on Indigenous Education at UBC. She also received a Certificate in Magazine Journalism from Ryerson U. Sharon founded and operated the international literary E-Zine Big Pond Rumours (2006-2019) and its associated press, which released chapbooks of Canadian poets as prizes for the magazine’s contests. She's published five full books and three chapbooks, working in poetry, fiction, and nonfiction. Her work appears in periodicals across Canada, the USA, Mexico, the UK, the Netherlands, India, Germany, Singapore, and Australia. Her 3rd poetry collection Stars in the Junkyard (Cyberwit 2020) was a Finalist in the 2022 International Book Awards, and her narrative history The Name Unspoken: Wandering Spirit Survival School (Big Pond Rumours Press 2019) won a 2020 IPPY Award for Regional Nonfiction. When she retired from teaching, she opened Oceanview Writers Retreat in Charlottetown (Terra Nova National Park) Newfoundland.