Hat Girl

Pertice McIlveen, a young Ontario woman who loves Hemingway and hates hats, receives a mysterious key in the mail. Accompanied by her best friend Es, she travels to Gannet Island off the coast of New Brunswick to find the door it fits into. There she discovers a charming cottage by the sea has been willed to her by a secret benefactor identified only as PM, on the condition she wears the hats that come with it. She accepts the challenge, leaving behind her life in Toronto and moving into Honeysuckle Cottage. As she seeks to solve the mystery of PM, Pertice is gradually changed by the hats she wears and the islanders she meets. With the help of Charlotte, the proprietor of the local bed and breakfast, her artist husband Will, and two men caught between land and sea, Pertice discovers a new kind of grace under pressure.

Wanda Campbell was born in South India and came to Canada at the age of ten. With her husband and three daughters she has camped in the National Parks in every province in Canada and has lived and worked in New Brunswick and Ontario. She now lives in Wolfville, Nova Scotia, where she teaches Creative Writing at Acadia University in view of the highest tides in the world. She has published the novelHat Girl, and three collections of poetry, Sky Fishing, Looking For Lucy andGrace. She has also edited literature anthologies for Penguin and an anthology of early Canadian women poets calledHidden Rooms. Her creative work has appeared in journals from coast to coast, includingAntigonish Review, Dalhousie Review, Descant, existere, Fiddlehead, Gaspereau Review, Grain, Harpweaver, New Quarterly, Queen's Quarterly, Room of One's Own, Vallum, Wascana Review, Windsor Review and in the anthologiesBody Language and Landmarks.