Catherine Owen (writer)

Catherine Owen is a Canadian poet, writer, and performer.

Early life
Catherine Owen was born and raised in Vancouver, the eldest of five siblings. At 11, her short story won a Catholic school writing contest. As a teenager, Owen wrote and performed public readings of her poetry. Owen currently resides in Edmonton, Alberta.

Career
In 1998, her first work was published by Exile Editions. Since then, she has published a number of literary, non-fiction and poetry works. She regularly reviews poetry for Canadian publications.

As a musician she has played with the metal bands Inhuman and Helgrind and has a solo project called Grieve. She has also performed several one-woman plays.

Owen runs the performance series 94th Street Trobairitz, and hosts a podcast named Ms Lyric's Poetry Outlaws. She has a web series named The Reading Queen, about literature aimed at children.

Publications

 * The Other 23 and a Half Hours or Everything You Wanted To Know That Your MFA Didn't Teach You (Wolsak & Wynn, 2015)
 * The Day of the Dead, a collection of short stories (Caitlin Press, 2016)
 * Locations of Grief: an emotional geography, an anthology of Canadian grief memoirs (Wolsak & Wynn, 2020)

Awards

 * Stephan G. Stephansson Award for Poetry in 2010.

Nominations

 * Gerald Lampert Award (1999)
 * BC Book Prize (2002)
 * George Ryga Award
 * Re-lit Prize (2006, 2018)
 * Pat Lowther Award (2018)