Heather Avis McPherson (28 May 1942 – 10 January 2017) was a feminist poet, publisher and editor who played a key role in supporting women artists and writers in New Zealand.
[1] Her influential literary and visual arts activism was inspired by an all-male poets' evening at the 1973 Christchurch Festival, where she observed "twenty young men getting up on the stage one after another".
[11][12] In her introduction to the collection McPherson noted that since the 1970s she had sought "to make a new start, to clear out the 'patriarchy in the head'", and on other hand to "redefine such emotionally charged concepts as 'woman' and 'lesbian' with their pejorative accretions".
[11] Other works published by Spiral included Keri Hulme's Booker Prize-winning novel The Bone People (1984), The House of the Talking Cat by J C Sturm (Jacquie Baxter, 1983), and Drawing Together by Janet Charman, Marina Bachmann and Sue Fitchett (1985).
[1] McPherson was a single mother and grandmother, and in her early career worked various "survival jobs" such as fruit picking and school bus driving in order to support her family.
[14] After her death, in early 2018, a collective of Spiral members Janet Charman, Lynne Ciochetto and Marian Evans published a collection of poetry by McPherson, called This Joyous, Chaotic Place: Garden Poems, as part of an exhibition called "This Joyous, Chaotic Place: He Waiata Tangi-ā-Tahu" at Mokopōpaki, an Auckland dealer gallery with Māori values at its centre.
[6][15][16][17] The event included the screening of an interview of McPherson in 1980,[18] and was a project that formed part of the celebrations in New Zealand marking 125 years since women's suffrage.