Kathy Page is the UK/Canadian author of eight novels, including The Story of My Face, short-listed for the Orange Prize in 2002; Alphabet, nominated for a Governor General’s Literary Award for fiction in 2005, and The Find, short-listed for a ReLit award in 2011. Her most recent novel, Dear Evelyn, won the 2018 Rogers Writers’ Trust Fiction Prize. The jury citation reads:
“Kathy Page’s Dear Evelyn tells the tender and unsettling story of working-class Londoner Harry Miles and the ambitious Evelyn Hill who fall in love as the world around them goes to war. What initially begins as a familiar wartime love story morphs into a startling tale of time’s impact on love and family, as well as one’s complex search for personal meaning and truth. By integrating themes that are universally understood by readers and skillfully crafting endearing characters that surprise and delight, Page has created a poignant literary work of art. The result is a timeless page-turning masterpiece.”
Page also writes short fiction. It’s collected in Paradise & Elsewhere, 2014, and The Two of Us, 2016, both of which were nominated for Canada’s Giller Prize. She has written script for radio, TV and film and her non-fiction has appeared in newspapers, magazines and anthologies.
Complex characters and compelling narrative are Page’s trademarks, as is suspense, both psychological and existential. “One of the most compelling, unsettling novels I’ve read in ages, which should appeal to fans of classy thrillers and literary fiction alike,” Sarah Waters wrote in the Independent on Sunday, choosing The Story of My Face as one of her Books of the Year.
The About section contains an overview of Kathy Page’s writing. The site also includes an author biography, novel summaries and information about many of Kathy Page’s novels, along with book reviews, and interviews, as well as some video and audio of the author reading from/ talking about her work. Readers, writers and book clubs will find plenty of useful material, including reader’s guides and discussion questions, Kathy Page’s responses to readers’ questions about her books and about writing in general, and a blog – Notes & Queries, in which she sometimes writes about the pleasures, pains and ironies of the writer’s life.
Kathy Page is also an accomplished editor, workshop facilitator, and a mentor to emerging writers. She has taught a wide variety of creative writing and fiction courses and workshops in universities and other institutions in the UK, Finland, Estonia – and now in Canada, where she has lived, on Salt Spring Island, BC, with her husband and family since 2001. Information about manuscript consultancy with Kathy Page, and about writing workshops and courses is updated periodically.
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