Gourlay believes hope is a place you can go dancing, is addicted to tobacco and caffeine, and loves walking barefoot in deep grass on Tuesday afternoons. Her poetry, prose and essays have appeared in an assortment of print and online publications including 2River View; Flaming Asian Ink; Get Underground; Jack; Little Brown Poetry; Locust; Megaera; Niederngasse; Peshekee; Retort; Slow Trains; Side Reality; The Breath; The Pedestal Magazine; Tin Lustre Mobile; Unlikely Stories; Wide Thinker; Wired Art From Wired Hearts; and elsewhere. She is a 2003 Kota Press Anthology Winner and a finalist in the Poetry Institute Africa Annual Awards.

The poems of Candy Gourlay are heavy, pregnant with the constant assurance of death, and the knowledge of the agony that awaits us all in a lifetime. There are six billion ways to handle pain, and Candy seems to have insight on all of them, exploring our trauma and loss with courage, honesty, and, dare I say it, more than a little bit of wisdom. - Jonathan Penton, Editor, Unlikely Stories