“[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 (2009) Penguin Group Canada |
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. > Purchase from your local independent bookseller |
 skids (2006) Arsenal Pulp Press SHORTLISTED |
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. > Purchase from your local independent bookseller |
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