Works by
Helen Humphreys
(Writer)

Poetry

• Gods and Other Mortals (1986)

• Nuns Looking Anxious, Listening to Radios (1990)

• The Perils of Geography (1995)

• Anthem (1999)

Fiction

• Ethel on Fire (1991)
  A novella

• Leaving Earth (1997)
  On August 1, 1933, two young women, the famous aviatrix Grace O'Gorman and the inexperienced Willa Briggs, take off in a tiny moth biplane to break the world flight endurance record.  Their plan: to circle above the city of Toronto for twenty-five days.  With each passing day, the women's ties to humanity fall away and the intensity of their connection becomes as gripping as the perils that besiege them: fatigue, weather, mechanical breakdown, and the lethal efforts of a saboteur.

• Afterimage (2001) -- Winner Roger Writers' Trust Fiction Prize.
  Inspired by the life of Julia Margaret Cameron, this is a bold and provocative Victorian love story.  When Annie Phelan arrives at the home of Isabelle and Eldon Dashell to work as a maid, she encounters a marriage long grown distant.  Isabelle is experimenting with the new art of photography, and is inspired by Annie, who becomes a muse to her mistress.  The two form a close relationship, but when Eldon devises his own plans for the young maid, Annie nearly loses herself, until disaster reveals her power over the Dashells' work and hearts.

• The Lost Garden (2002)
  "The Lost Garden was inspired by events in the lives of my grandfathers. My mother's father was a painter and a keen amateur gardener. For the last few years of his life he lived on an English country estate that had been converted into apartments for the elderly. While exploring the grounds of the estate, he discovered a lost garden and spent his remaining time on earth bringing this neglected garden back to life. Shortly after he died, at the age of ninety-one, the estate was sold to condominium developers and the whole complex, including the restored garden, was razed to the ground.
  
  My father's father was an RAF bomber pilot. He went missing in the spring of 1941 during a night flight to Malta. His disappearance affected my father's life profoundly and brought home to me the staggering human cost of war, not just in terms of those who died in the service of war but also in the continuing affect of their death on those who loved them and were waiting for their safe return.
  
  It was the combination of these two stories, of my two grandfathers, that provided the framework for the writing of The Lost Garden."  -- from W. W. Norton Reading Group

• Wild Dogs (2005) - Finalist, 2005 Lambda Literary Award for Lesbian Fiction
  Every evening, Alice and five other people gather at the forest's edge, trying to call their dogs back from the feral pack they've joined.  Alice's boyfriend had abandoned her dog there, in an act of anger and desperation.  Most of the rest have similar tales of jealousy or vengeance enacted upon them through their dogs: Jaime is rebelling against his stepfather; Lily, who has suffered brain damage, is considered irresponsible.

Becoming more deeply involved, Alice moves out to a cabin on land owned by Malcolm, one of the group, whose motives in having her there are suspicious.  As she falls in love with the wildlife biologist whose wolf has gained lead of the pack, she feels the tug between love's wild power and her desire to domesticate it.  After a tragic accident, all members of the group must rethink their lives and find their places in an untamed world.