Published Works

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“[Cathleen With]’s voice is original, fresh, and authentic. With inhabits her characters from the inside out, and presents them to us with a clear, unblinking gaze. These stories feel lived rather than imagined.” —Quill & Quire

“This is fiction that shines a unique light into our common darkness. skids is filled with brilliant, powerful, and compassionate voices. If ever I need a guide on the dark side of the moon, I want it to be Cathleen With.” —Bill Gaston

Having Faith in the Polar Girls' Prison, winner of the Ethel Wilson Fiction Prize
Having Faith in the Polar Girls’ Prison
(2009)
Penguin Group Canada 

WINNER
2010 BC Book Prizes, Ethel Wilson Fiction Prize

Having Faith in the Polar Girls’ Prison

Against the stark and haunting landscape of Canada’s Far North, fifteen-year-old Trista chronicles the events of her life from her room in the Polar Girls’ Prison.

Caught in the decline of sexual abuse, drunkenness, and failed motherhood, Trista tries to make sense of her past, especially the events that led her to jail.

With heartfelt compassion and rare insight, the stunning new voice of debut novelist Cathleen With lends light to the hardships and suffering of the teenage girls and clash of cultures in this remote region that has never before been represented in literature.

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Skids by Cathleen With
skids (2006)
Arsenal Pulp Press 

SHORTLISTED
2007 ReLit Award, Short Fiction

Skids
Skid row: an impoverished neighbourhood, a phrase originating in the Depression era. Skids: tire marks in the street. Skids: street kids. 

The stories told in skids are elegiac confessions of the street: young kids living on their own, many of them runaways or addicts, eking out an existence in the brutal environs of Vancouver’s Downtown East Side. Often harrowing, these are the tales of the disenfranchised: teens and young adults holed up in shelters or city parks, in detox clinics or recovery houses, their secrets laid bare, their voices heard.

Told in the vernacular of the street, these stories reverberate with a sense of urgency and desperation, but amidst the chaos, there are also acts of compassion and displays of camaraderie; as readers, we are compelled to know them, to not avert their glances.

skids is based on the author’s personal experience trying to get clean in recovery houses among street youths; while not homeless herself, she had many friends who were. For Cathleen, writing skids was a way to pay homage to the kids she befriended, many of whom are now gone; Skids honours their stories, and makes them matter.

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> Purchase from Arsenal Pulp Press
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> Read Reviews for skids

Publications in Magazines & Literary Journals
“Ging’s Selling up Sharks on Karon Beach” PRISM international (2009)
“Drugs R Death” Geist Magazine (2007)
“Space Muppet” The Humanist in Canada (2005)
“Long-Haired Dog Faced Girl” (4 pages) THIS Magazine, November issue (2005)
“Guthrip” (1 page)
won third prize in the 1st annual Geist Literal Literary Postcard Story Contest
Geist Magazine, Issue 55 (2004)
“Carny” (4 pages)
shorlisted for the 2005 Western Magazine Awards, Fiction
The Humanist in Canada, Issue 149 (2004)
“Channih Counts”( 7 pages) A Room of One’s Own Volume 26:4 (2003)
“The Arbutus Tree” (6 pages) Love and Pomegranates by Sono Nis Press and editors Rona Murray, Garry McKevitt (2000)
“Pyjamas” (4 pages) subTerrain Magazine Summer issue (2000)
“Streets” (2 pgs) Fireweed Summer issue (1999)
“Jainfish” (8 pgs) A Room of One’s Own Volume 21:4 (1999)
“Hers Be Mine” (1 pg) Grain Autumn issue (1998)
“Detoxed” (6 pages) The Antigonish Review No. 110 (1997)
“Peeling the Arbutus Tree” (6 pages) Inner Harbour Review No. 3  (1996)
“Sumatra” (4 pages) Chaos Spring issue (1995)
“The Retards” (2 pages) Inner Harbour Review No. 1  (1994)
“He Was the Future” (5 pages) Voices, Cowichan Valley Youth Awareness Project No. 1 (1985)