Emma Healey (Canadian writer)

Healey was born in Toronto, Ontario on January 10, 1991 to actor and playwright parents.[1] She was named after Jane Austen's character, Emma, and writer Flannery O'Connor.[1] Healey has stereoblindness, having been born blind in one eye.[2] She studied creative writing at Concordia University, spending a year on exchange at University College Cork.[1] While at Concordia she was twice awarded the Irving Layton Award for Creative Writing.[3]

Begin With the End in Mind, Healey's first collection of poetry, was published in 2012.[1] It was selected by poet and writer Stan Rogal in 2015 as the reason he viewed Healey as an up-and-comer to watch.[4] Her second collection of poetry, Stereoblind, was released by House of Anansi Press in 2018.[5] The collection deals in part with learning that the name of her visual condition had a name.[6] The front cover art was designed by her then roommate, artist Layne Hinton.[3] Healey's book Best Young Woman Job Book was released by Random House in 2022.[7] The memoir tracks Healey's career through a series of odd jobs that haven't aligned with her initial idea of what it would mean to be a writer.[8] Canadian author and commentator, Elamin Abdelmahmoud, said of her writing in the book as having "flare and style and an incredibly infuriating amount of skill".[9]

Healey was the poetry critic for The Globe and Mail from 2014 to 2016.[10] She has also been a regular contributor to the music blog Said the Gramophone. In April 2018, Healey was Open Book's writer in residence.[3]

In a 2014 The Hairpin article Healey wrote about her experience dating an anonymous faculty member, which began as consensual but was ultimately defined by an imbalance of power.[11] Initially ignored by Concordia, attention was drawn to the article in 2018 after former Concordia student, Mike Spry, wrote about the toxicity of the writing program.[12] Author Heather O'Neill subsequently came forward as a groping victim while a student at the school, two decades earlier.[13] In 2018, Healey filed a formal complaint against a male professor. In October 2019 it was reported that the professor was no longer working at the school.[14]

• Begin With the End in Mind (2012)
• Stereoblind (2018)
• Best Young Woman Job Book: A Memoir (2022)
• Power (2019)