Holly Haggarty

Readings

Holly uses her books as a springboard to launch her audience on a journey of the imagination. Holly shares excerpts from her works, as well as thematically connected stories, poems, dialogues, chants and other word plays. Props, puppets, masks, costumes, voice, actions and role-playing often find their way into her lively, interactive presentations.

Holly also offers theatrical storytelling performances, with both original and folkloric material, on pre-arranged themes such as: Growing Up; My Family; Dragons, Heroes and Heroines; Animalia; Graffiti (An Adventure With Words).

Special Equipment:

Some presentations require audio-visual materials: microphone, sound system, variable lighting…

Book Sales:

Copies of books can be brought to be sold and autographed.

Workshops

Holly offers workshops on literacy, writing and storytelling. She specializes in using drama and games to engage the participants in a creative and active learning process. Workshop titles include: Poetry Boot Camp; Story Improvisation; Graffiti, Neologisms and Other Word Play. All ages and stages, from primary to adult, enjoy these workshops.

Special Equipment:

Some workshops require audio-visual materials: sound system, microphone, costumes, props (I would provide the latter two).

Book Sales:

Copies of books can be brought to be sold and autographed.

Biography

Holly Haggarty is a neologist, novelist, dramatist, cultural archivist – and Renaissance woman.

Neologist:
Holly’s Grade 2 teacher, Miss D’Archangelo asked the students to write sentences using their list of spelling words. One word was feet. Holly wrote: “My teacher says you don’t got two foots, you gots two feet.” Senora Archangel laughed in appreciation of Holly’s nascent love of creative orthography and neologism.

Novelist:
Holly continued on this trajectory of word play. Sentences led to stories and poems, which found a voice in dramatic play and storytelling. Holly has written many original stories, which she shares in storytelling performances at schools, libraries and other community venues. Her stories have been published in a number of magazines. She has also published two novels: Dream Dad and Summer Dragons.

Dramatist:
Holly works with several arts organizations: LTTA (Learning Through The Arts, a program of the Royal Conservatory of Music), CAHEP (Thunder Bay Community Arts and Heritage Education Project) and NOWW (North-western Ontario Writers’ Workshop), offering creative arts workshops to students of all ages. She particularly enjoys directing student presentations of their written work as performance poetry or narrative theatre.

Cultural Archivist:
Holly shares her love of story through various arts media. She works with Chaban Ukrainian Dance Group as a dancer, playwright and actress. Fort William Historical Park enjoys her role-playing interpretation of an 1815 Métis woman. Holly is the theatre reviewer for the Thunder Bay Chronicle Journal. De plus, elle offre des ateliers à la communauté francophone, en français.

Renaissance Woman:
Well, that’s what she says to console herself when she’s doing laundry.

OTHER PRESENTATIONS:
Holly enjoys performing stories for festivals and special events. She offers keynote addresses to schools, on the topic of literacy. She also offers professional development workshops to teachers and librarians on several topics, including literacy, storytelling and the integration of arts into literacy learning.