The Author
“Written in a richly lyric and poetic style, but also with a gripping narrative, LOST might be seen as a long and beautiful poem about grief, memory and love. I read it with admiration and delight. Cathy Ostlere is a brave new talent on our literary scene.”
—SHARON BUTALA, author of The Perfection of the Morning
Cathy Ostlere
Cathy Ostlere was born in Portage La Prairie, Manitoba. She and her three siblings grew up as air force brats moving between Manitoba and Ontario military bases. Her family eventually settled in Winnipeg, the home of her Ukrainian grandparents, where Cathy completed high school and a degree in English at the University of Manitoba. Post-graduation she worked in Toronto for Warner Publisher Services. In 1983, she began a journey that would take her through sixteen countries in eighteen months. A chance encounter with a sailing crew allowed her to visit thirteen of the Greek islands and cruise the coastline of Turkey. In 1984, she continued traveling, going east to India, South East Asia, Australia, New Zealand and the South Pacific. Upon her return to Canada in 1985, she settled in Calgary. Over the next ten years she was an at-home parent for three children and a freelance writer. In 1990, she took her first creative writing class.
Cathy Ostlere’s first book, LOST, began as a series of poems but grew into creative non-fiction essays with the assistance of Sharon Butala, Greg Hollingshead and Edna Alford at the Banff Centre and Roberta Rees at the University of Calgary. Karen Connelly, of the Humber School of Writing, guided LOST into a memoir. Essays excerpted from LOST have been short-listed for the National Magazine Awards, Western Magazine Awards, CBC Literary Awards, and Prism International and Event Magazine Non-fiction Contests. In 2009, Lost: A Memoir was shortlisted for the prestigious Edna Staebler Award for Creative Non-fiction. In 2010, she co-wrote with Dennis Garnhum, Artistic Director of Theatre Calgary, LOST: A Memoir, a 90 minute one-woman play performed in Calgary and expected to tour Canada over the next two years. Her first novel, Karma, a verse novel written for young adults, will be released by Penguin in Canada and the U.S. in March 2011.
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NEW BOOK
KARMA— A Verse Novel
Published by PUFFIN Canada and RAZORBILL U.S.
Coming MARCH 2011
Razorbill ISBN-13: 978-15951433
Puffin ISBN-13: 978-0670064526
On October 31, 1984, Indira Gandhi is gunned down by two Sikh bodyguards. The murder sparks riots in Delhi and for three days Sikh families are targeted and killed in retribution for the Prime Minister’s death. It is into this chaos that fifteen-year-old Maya and her Sikh father, Amar, arrive from their home in Canada. India’s political instability is the backdrop and catalyst for Maya’s awakening to the world. KARMA is the story of how a young woman, straddling two cultures and enduring personal loss, learns forgiveness, acceptance and love.