When does writing feel easiest to you?
When I’m journalling.
Who do you share your early drafts with?
My husband.
Have you had a teacher that stood out or that you still think about to this day? How does their influence continue to surface in your current practice?
My grade eight teacher was one of the first people I remember being really supportive of my writing and encouraging me to write. She gave me the English award for our grade, and I remember being so moved by how she introduced me. I felt seen by her, and I think I continue to carry the confidence she gave me 18 years ago.
When did you first consider yourself a writer?
The time I wrote my first poem, when I was about eight or nine.
How has writing enabled you to rewrite yourself?
I’m not sure that I rewrite myself – does that imply a sort of erasure or correction? I think that I write into myself. My work helps me observe and examine my life. It validates what I’m feeling and often helps me heal.
What is magical to you? What is the last thing you were enchanted by?
On the warm days we’ve been having, I’ve been looking at all the people around me as I’m on my daily walks, and it’s a lot easier to feel connected to them and love them all. It’s like I can feel the happiness they feel, because it’s the same happiness as mine.
What is something new that you’ve learned recently, whether mundane or existential?
I’ve been reading a lot of magazines lately (to decrease screentime) so I’m learning a little bit about a bunch of random topics. I now know that Gaston Glock died in 2023 at the age of 93 and left his gun company to his 43-year-old wife instead of his three children. And I know that the most expensive fish that Canada exports is the glass eel, costing up to $5,000/kg which is over 100 times more expensive than lobster.
What was the last risk you took? OR What’s the last mistake you made?
Agreeing to facilitate a poetry workshop is a risk – I’ve never done it before and I’m dealing with some imposter syndrome. I’ll let you know after this Thursday if it was a mistake.
What is a word you love but don’t get to use enough?
Diaphanous.
Hajer Mirwali is a Palestinian and Iraqi writer living in Toronto. Her first book, Revolutions (Talonbooks, 2025), is a collection of poetry on shame, pleasure, and Arab Muslim girlhood. Two poems from the collection also appear in an anthology of Palestinian poetry called Heaven Looks Like Us (Haymarket Books, 2025). Hajer’s work has been published in The Ex-Puritan, Brick Magazine, Room Magazine, and Joyland. She has an MFA in Creative Writing from the University of Guelph, and a BA in Creative Writing from York University.
Hajer has been regularly recording her dreams and is working towards a second collection of poetry about memories and trauma.