Book Reading: Woman of the Hour by Claire Polders

Claire Polders is a Dutch novelist who just published her debut flash fiction collection in English.

In Woman of the Hour: Fifty Tales of Longing and Rebellion (Vine Leaves Press, 2025) women around the world play roles to find themselves, resist oblivion, break laws, swallow regrets, take revenge, and follow passions.

It’s “a brilliant and necessary collection for our times,” wrote Kathy Fish, one of the masters of the genre.

The author will read stories from her book and take questions from the audience about her inspirations, aspirations, and her current project.

Claire will be at The Arts Centre to write about the peculiar experience of strengthening her connection with the world while losing her sense of self. For the past six years, she’s been slow traveling the world as a nomad, giving up homes, prejudices, and certainties.

“We feel it happening. A pause, a freeze, a doubt. A refusal of pain. It rises as a song in our bodies, starting low, then surging out of one mouth. It’s a call-to-arms. Our arms.” (From Woman of the Hour, by Claire Polders)