Haylee Collins
Haylee Collins is a mother, writer, marketer, publisher and creative director of new print publication, HOWL – a magazine exploring the complexities of creative motherhood. We chat to Haylee about her personal journey navigating this intersection, including the moments that have literally made her howl.
Photography: Ilsa Wynne-Hoelscher Kidd & Alice Acton
‘Motherhood gave me back some of the unselfconscious courage of my youth and compelled me to seek out a life that would make my son and myself proud,’ says Haylee Collins. Photo: Alice Acton
HOWL is a print magazine exploring the intersection of creativity and motherhood. Photo: Alice Acton
‘Wonder, fury, connection, love, indignation, contemplation [drives my creativity]… I’ve always been deeply contemplative,’ says Haylee Collins. Photo: Ilsa Wynne-Hoelscher Kidd
‘In some respects I’m just along for the ride. HOWL feels like a wolf cub that’s taken on a life of its own.’ Photo: Alice Acton
Photo: Ilsa Wynne-Hoelscher Kidd
H&F: Hi Haylee, what led you here and how has your journey evolved?
Haylee: Creating HOWL feels like a natural evolution of my career and life to date. I’ve always worked in industries where the majority of the workforce are women, often mothers. I worked in digital media and then book publishing for several years as a marketing manager – with a focus on children’s books and then art and design books. I also ran an independent magazine a decade ago – a feminist magazine for teen girls, called Young Vagabond. So, I’ve been speaking to and creating for the buyers of those products, who are often mothers, for a long time. Then I became a mother myself, which recontextualized all those experiences and made me consider anew how I wanted my future to look.
We read that after becoming a mother you had a creative reawakening – why do you think motherhood had this impact on you?
I listened to an episode of Ologies with Alie Ward a little while ago, which discussed the mental state we need to be in for our minds to wander and imagination to take hold. It’s that mental drift of being in the shower or going for a long walk, where your thoughts have nowhere in particular to be and so some of our best ideas strike in those moments. My early experience of mothering was full of those mental drifts, especially the first couple of years with a lot of time spent in lockdown. Whether it was time spent breastfeeding or contact napping or going for long walks with the pram, it gave my mind the space for ideas to percolate in a way they hadn’t been able to for many years where I was so busy and focused on work and life. Rather than listen to a podcast or read a passage from a book or article and then move on instantly to the next thing that needed doing, I’d sometimes be forced to sit with the information and contemplate it quite deeply, which would send my mind off on these really enriching tangents and made fertile ground for new ideas to flourish.
As a creative, what’s the best lesson you’ve learnt along the way?
No one else is going to give you the time and space to create. No one is going to prioritise your creative practice besides you. You have to carve that space and time out for yourself and feel secure in your insistence that it’s necessary – which, if you’re also the primary caregiver to a child is tough, as society will try to make you feel like creativity is a frivolous thing to prioritise. It’s not. Creativity is a necessary part of the human condition and the thing you create may change someone’s perspective… even their life.
How do you navigate the pull of motherhood with the demands of a career?
While many of my best ideas and inspirations come during moments when I’m with my son, I generally can’t do the actual work in his presence. I navigate the motherhood-creativity see-saw by treating my creative time as my career. My son attends childcare or goes to his grandparent’s house 3-4 days a week and in that time I try to fit in my work in all its forms – reading, researching, writing, content creation, marketing, order fulfilment, admin and a bit of contract work on the side.
There are times where that choice can feel brutal. He would rather be with me. After two years of this arrangement, he still cries and doesn’t want me to leave when I drop him off. So, there is guilt and there are times where I worry if it’s the right thing… but in my lucid moments I can say confidently it’s the right thing for me, as a mother and a human being. I get to feel this sense of creative fulfilment, and then when I’m physically with him I try to be really present and that’s fulfilling in a different way. Me being fulfilled is what makes it the right choice for us as a family.
And it’s an absolute privilege to have an arrangement like this. So many artists and creatives are only able to make the work that they do because of privileges they’re too sheepish to be transparent about, and the rest of us sit wondering why we’re not able to live up to our own potential in the same way. The answer is usually that we need time and space to be able to create.
How has motherhood informed your practice?
When it comes to HOWL, motherhood and creativity really informed each other. In my first year of motherhood, one of the first and most relevant touchpoints that led to me starting the magazine was noticing that many of the artists and creatives I’d worked with or knew, were wrestling with the consequences of sharing, or even just referencing, their motherhood through their own social media accounts. Losing followers or receiving critical comments because people that followed them weren’t interested in seeing any evidence of these women having children – as though art exists in a vacuum? This coincided with reading an article by UK art critic Hettie Judah about motherhood being taboo in the art world.
It piqued my interest as a mother, writer and feminist and from there I spent over a year deep diving into the intersections of these subjects. Researching how historically minimised, trivialised and even absent the experience of mothering often is from areas we consider to be intellectual and worthy – art, culture, philosophy, design and literature. At the end of that year of research I felt somewhat well placed to move ahead with creating a magazine. To explore those same topics in a way that integrated the experience of mothering – equally intellectual and worthy.
Alongside this I was diving back into my own writing practice, sharing snippets online in a way I once never would have. I think you get less self-conscious through motherhood because it’s such a bodily experience filled with embarrassing, even gross, moments. So, the apprehension I would’ve once felt about sharing personal projects or pieces of writing is mostly gone. And in the moments when it’s not gone, I push through it. Motherhood gave me back some of the unselfconscious courage of my youth and compelled me to seek out a life that would make my son and myself proud.
What drives your creativity?
Wonder, fury, connection, love, indignation, contemplation… I’ve always been deeply contemplative. I was pondering religion in an atheist household at 4-years-old. Questioning concepts of ‘fairness’ got me into all sorts of trouble throughout my school years. Thinking in this way can be a fuel, but also quite isolating. So, creative practice is a way of connecting with others while allowing exploration and expansion of deep ideas.
‘There’s no blueprint for mothering as a creative, so I hope that by presenting a diverse array of perspectives, experiences and viewpoints in the magazine – to see the many ways there are of ‘doing it’ – others might feel courage to pursue and shape their own creative vision.’ Photo: Ilsa Wynne-Hoelscher Kidd
“Creativity is a necessary part of the human condition and the thing you create may change someone’s perspective… even their life.”
‘I think you get less self-conscious through motherhood because it’s such a bodily experience filled with embarrassing, even gross, moments. So, the apprehension I would’ve once felt about sharing personal projects or pieces of writing is mostly gone.’ Photo: Alice Acton
Photo: Ilsa Wynne-Hoelscher Kidd
Photo: Ilsa Wynne-Hoelscher Kidd
‘I love possibility, and that’s what I’m relishing at this time in my life. The possibilities feel endless.’ Photo: Alice Acton
Tell us about HOWL - how did the title come about and what does it mean to you ?
The title is inspired by a picture book of the same name about a little girl who’s in a real mood and doesn’t want to go to bed. After a hectic evening her mum lets out a howl with the line, ‘If I am a mum, then I am also a wolf.’ Then they spend the night gamboling wildly about the backyard as wolves. I love that my HOWL is an ode to that Howl. I discovered it just after reading the novel Nightbitch by Rachel Yoder, about an artist and mother who thinks she’s turning into a dog. The perfect novel about early motherhood.
This imagery was fascinating to me because despite all my research and knowledge and best intentions, I struggled with maternal rage after I had my son. In fact, I was feeling the most triggered right around the time I read both those books. Between the ages one and a half and two and a half my son was naturally starting to assert his independence and I was having to relinquish control in all sorts of ways. Control had been a safeguard for me as a first-time mum during the pandemic. So, I really identified with this imagery of the mother losing her controlled façade to become a wild, bestial creature.
What do you most hope your readers take away from the pages of HOWL?
One of the best bits of feedback I received was from a reader who said she got so much out of the pieces she identified with personally, but also from the pieces that didn’t resonate with her. There’s no blueprint for mothering as a creative, so I hope that by presenting a diverse array of perspectives and experiences and viewpoints in the magazine – to see the many ways there are of ‘doing it’ – others might feel courage to pursue and shape their own creative vision.
Would you say this is your dream job?
Aspects of it are. I love the ideation stage, and the pulling together of a vision. I can immerse myself deeply in that form of creation, by it’s quite a singular way of working so when I’m in it I often can’t do other things I enjoy like read or do any of my own writing. Conversely, I don’t really like the launch and promotion phase. Once a project is complete I prefer to move onto the next thing, so marketing and social media and whatnot can be quite draining. But because I can’t sustain that type of focus it means I return to reading and writing and find new ideas start flowing, which starts the cycle again. I love possibility, and that’s what I’m relishing at this time in my life. The possibilities feel endless.
What’s been the biggest lesson you’ve learnt during your time in publishing?
I have complicated feelings about publishing as an industry. I have cherished memories from my time in it. It’s an industry full of brilliantly talented, intelligent and hard-working people. On the other hand, everyone is over-qualified, overworked and underpaid. It’s an old and gate-kept institution. Although I came from a background of publishing my own magazine – a background of ideation and creation – I got the message time and again that I needed to stay in my lane, which was marketing. So, my personal lesson was in recognising that I’m not one thing, I have so much to offer and do and I couldn’t do it from within my role in publishing. I have immense respect for the skills, knowledge and perspectives of those who stay. They are the people changing the industry for the better.
What are your hopes for HOWL?
In some respects I’m just along for the ride. HOWL feels like a wolf cub that’s taken on a life of its own. I guess the first issue was quite earnest, but in future I hope to be more daring, push some boundaries, change some thinking. Print has my heart and I’d like to publish at least 6 issues but it’s expensive to produce, so I need to find a way for that to be sustainable for me financially.
Do you have a disciplined studio routine and any rituals to help keep you focused?
In almost every other aspect of my life I’m quite routine-driven, quite particular about how I like things done. But creatively? No. It’s like I go from earth to water. My creative process is totally liquid, and sort of needs to be while I’m juggling so many roles… I need quiet and a lot of natural light, so I do my best work at my dining table in an empty house. Other than that, there is no real constant to my creative process.
What advice can you share with someone who aspires to work in a publishing/media role?
Although this isn’t my exact experience, in the interest of transparency around creative privilege I’ll share that depending on where you hope to land in these industries you could find yourself earning very little for the amount or type of work you’re expected to do. Many brilliant people who work in creative industries do it for the love of it, but that’s not sustainable for many. Often people who don’t have the financial support of their partners or family end up having to seek work in adjacent industries. There are many wonderful things about publishing. A lot of heart-filling moments. But it’s important people go in with eyes wide open. It’s a competitive industry to break into, but also a bit broken. If you work in it and love it wholeheartedly, fantastic. But it you figure out it’s not right for you, don’t stay out of a misguided sense of gratitude.
What are you looking forward to most this year?
I’m now starting work on HOWL Issue 02, which I hope to publish around October. I’m also starting a separate writing project this year exploring mother-son relationships – something I realised there was a dearth of after I had my son and went looking for work exploring the subject – and I’m slowly getting back into the marketing and the brand side of things with some freelance work. I’m not boxing myself in too much. As I said, the possibilities are endless.