Catherine Bush
Catherine Bush belongs to the current generation of writers. Her sensibility and stories are much more contemporary than those of writers like Morley Callaghan, Sinclair Ross and Margaret Laurence.
She grew up in Toronto, studied Comparative Literature at Yale and lived and worked in New York and Massachusetts before returning.
Her second novel, The Rules of Engagement (2000) grabbed my attention when it was featured on CBC Radio's Between the Covers. I heard the clip in the car, on my way home from work. The premise -- a duel in contemporary downtown Toronto -- hooked me immediately.
The scene I heard was so arresting -- a refugee hopeful getting rid of her passport in an aircraft washroom -- that I went immediately to the library, borrowed the book and skimmed until I found the scene I'd just heard. Then I settled down at the White Spot and read to the end. Later I went back to the beginning and read the rest.
In 2004, Bush published her third novel, Claire's Head, an intriguing story that concerns the disappearance of Rachel. In spite of suffering from migraines, Claire looks for her sister, which means leaving her normal life and exposing herself to new people and situations.
Work by Catherine Bush has won or been nominated for several awards, and she has worked with UBC, U of A and other Canadian and US Universities as Writer-in-Residence. She has also taught Creative Writing at Concordia in Montreal and the Humber School for Writers in Toronto. Her website reports that she is at work on another novel.