How I retold my ‘what if’ moments

Joy Holley’s new book Dream Girl (Te Herenga Waka University Press, RRP $30) is a collection of stories about young women navigating desire.

A book about desire, romance, love – how much of these stories are fuelled by your own experiences?

The collection is set in Wellington and follows young, queer women, so inevitably the world of the protagonists is very close to my own. I’m extremely lucky to exist in communities where queerness is accepted and flourishing, and this is something I tried to reflect in the book. These communities are who Dream Girl is for.

Like most writers, I’m always mining my own life for images and anecdotes. I’ve kept diaries all through my teenage and adult years, and I do use them as sources of inspiration. However, I’m constantly surprised by what people assume is autobiographical or fictional. Even those close to me often guess wrong! A lot of the stories in Dream Girl started with a ‘‘what if’’ from my own life, especially ‘‘what if I did this thing that I know I shouldn’t do?’’ This has meant there is a lot of questionable behaviour in the book, but also that most of the actual plots are fictional.

You completed your Masters at the International Institute of Modern Letters in 2020 – is this book a product of that?

Fifteen of the stories were written during the MA, though some have been heavily edited since. I knew I wanted to write a couple more before I submitted the manuscript for publication, and I knew I wanted one (Blood Magic) to be about sex and partying, because I felt like the collection needed more of that.

Our MA class had three weeks together in person before we went into the first lockdown, which obviously wasn’t ideal. Doing workshops and supervision meetings over Zoom took a bit of getting used to, but I do think the pandemic brought our class closer and made us extra grateful when we could hang out in person again. I was actually my most productive during lockdown, as I was the only person who stayed in my flat and had barely any distractions.

What’s a book you’ve reread over and over?

Tauhou by Kotuku Titihuia Nuttall came out in November last year, but I have already read and reread it. It is a book that really benefits from rereading, as there are so many threads and connections between stories and characters, and because there are so many things that are left unsaid. I’m excited to read the Canadian edition (published by House of Anansi Press April 2023) next.