Catherine Bush

Catherine Bush was UNB’s twenty-fifth writer-in-residence for the 2005-2006 academic year. A native to Toronto, Catherine Bush has moved around all her life but always returns to Toronto as her home. She received a degree in comparative literature from Yale University, and taught at a few different universities before coming to U.N.B as writer-in-residence.

Her book The Rules of Engagement (2000) was chosen as Best Book of the Year by both L.A. Times & the Globe and Mail. The book was made into a big screen film starring Denzel Washington.

She held her first reading as a writer-in-residence for UNB at Memorial Hall on September 23rd, 2003. She led a fiction workshop in Moncton for the Writers’ Federation of New Brunswick on October 5th, 2005, and then again on November 5th, hosted by WFNB again at the Attic Owl Bookshop. She was the first speaker of a Speaker Series held on January 18th, 2006, of which she spoke on a topic called "Inside Claire's Head." This topic was about a look at the writer's inspiration when writing Claire's Head (2004), and the process of writing and revision. She also held a reading at the UNB campus in St. John for the Lorenzo reading series on March 13th, 2006.

Bush was preceded by Erin Mouré and succeeded by Karen Solie.

"Don't think of it as a business: think of writing as something you do because you love it. But be pragmatic and educate yourself about the publishing industry and people in it. And buy as many books as you can. A culture of writers depends on a culture of readers - and book buyers. And often writers and readers are the same people."

Sources:

UA Case 191; Section 2; Catherine Bush