A Londoner by birth, Cathie moved to the Westcountry to study music. She now lives in the historic city of Exeter.
She taught the piano at Exeter School for many years, but several short story competition successes, including a story published in the Romantic Novelists’ Association anthology, Truly, Madly, Deeply, led to her swapping keyboards and taking writing more seriously.
She lectured in creative writing at Exeter College and that experience resulted in the Amazon best-selling The Creative Writing Student’s Handbook co-authored with Margaret James.
In 2010, Cathie founded CreativeWritingMatters.co.uk. The team offers author services and runs literary competitions, including the Exeter Novel Prize, now in its eighth year.
Cathie’s debut novel, Secret of the Song, reached No 35 overall in Kindle UK and was shortlisted for the Dorchester Literary Festival Prize in 2018. Notes from the Lost was recently shortlisted for the 2020 Selfies Awards. It is based on the true story of a friend’s father who was hidden by a shepherd’s family in the Italian mountain during WW2. It was a privilege to have access to his letters and diaries and they so moved me that I put to one side the novel I had begun in order to work on Notes from the Lost.
