CORNELIA HOOGLAND was raised on Vancouver Island. Her parents emigrated from the Netherlands in 1951. Cornelia was the first of their children to be born on Canadian soil.

Cornelia began writing in grade 5 when she became the literary editor for her school newspaper, the Quennel Quack. Of that time, Cornelia says "Although I wrote stories myself, I didn't understand that writers were living people sitting at desks and typewriters. To me writers were either dead or living far way in England. I didn't have a context for my own work, and I certainly hadn't met somebody like myself in any of the books I read."

Cornelia's poetry has been published in literary journals, locally in magazines such as: Prairie Fire, The New Quarterly, Poetry Canada, Fiddlehead, Quarry and the Malahat Review; and internationally in: Poetry Australia, Parnassus Literary Journal (USA), Verse (Scotland), and Prairie Schooner (USA) among others. Her poems have also appeared in a number of anthologies, including: Canadian Women Writers (1993) and the Stroll Anthology (1993). Her work has aired on radio and been performed on stage. She has also written fairy tales. Cornelia's most recent children's work was a feminist play titled Cinderella: A West Coast Fairy Tale. She has read her poetry at the Gulf Islands Poetry Festival and the XV Commonwealth Games in Victoria, B.C. The Wire-Thin Bride (Turnstone, 1990) was her first book of poems. Recently, at the CBC "Tilden Canadian Literary Awards" Competition, Cornelia was a finalist.

After graduating from the Banff School of the Arts in 1987, Cornelia began teaching creative writing and English courses. Before that she had many other jobs, working as a berry picker, an art teacher, a dental assistant, singer and actor. She has staged musical productions and performed and acted in them as well. She says that being a mother is one of her biggest jobs. Her second book of poetry, Marrying the Animals, came out in 1995 with Brick Books. Her third manuscript, The Consenting Adult moves on, is looking for a home. Currently she is living in London, Ontario where she teaches at the University of Western Ontario.