false 394117 0 0
She is the author of 8 novels and 3 short story collections and the editor of two collections of travel essays.

Katherine has been a visiting lecturer in both Creative Writing and Magazine Journalism at York University (Toronto), Ryerson Polytechnical University, (Toronto), and The University of Leeds (Leeds, England).

Katherine has been instrumental in establishing two innovative writing programs. In 1989, with teacher Trevor Owen, she founded Writers in Electronic Residence, a national online writing program connecting Canadian writers in their homes to high school students in classrooms across Canada from Newfoundland to the Arctic to Vancouver Island . Since 2004 she has been on the Program Advisory Committee for the post-degree certificate program, Canadian Journalism for Internationally Trained Writers, at Sheridan College, Oakville, Ontario. a post-degree certificate for immigrant, refugee or exiled writers.

She is currently at work on her ninth novel, about Hokusai's daughter. ]]> female 1539998 1585674109 9781585674107 6 <![CDATA[Creation]]> http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1184920589m/1539998.jpg http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1184920589s/1539998.jpg http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1539998.Creation 3.06 16 The Birds of America. In June 1833, partway through his mission, he enlisted his son, Captain Bayfield of the Royal Navy, and a party of young gentlemen to set sail for nesting grounds no ornithologist had ever seen, in the treacherous passage between Newfoundland and Labrador. Creation explores the short, stormy summer throughout which the captain became the artist's foil, measuring stick, and the recipient of his long-held secrets. It is an exploration of that fateful expedition, a probing and imaginative narrative that fills in a gap in the visionary naturalist's well-documented life.

In this atmospheric and enthralling novel, Katherine Govier tells the story of a man torn between the lies he has lived by and the truth he now needs. Her novel recreates the summer in which "the world's greatest living bird artist" finally understood the paradox embedded in his art: that the act of creation is also an act of destruction.]]> 394117 3.12 52 13 2002 793289 000718039X 9780007180394 2 <![CDATA[Three Views of Crystal Water]]> http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1178411657m/793289.jpg http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1178411657s/793289.jpg http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/793289.Three_Views_of_Crystal_Water 4.00 9 394117 3.12 52 13 2005 2377647 0679310320 9780679310327 2 <![CDATA[Angel Walk]]> http://www.goodreads.com/images/nocover-111x148.jpg http://www.goodreads.com/images/nocover-60x80.jpg http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/2377647.Angel_Walk 1.88 8 At eighty-five, Cory Ditchburn has finally agreed to a retrospective of her art. For years she had refused, afraid that any summing up of her life's work would mean she'd never work again. But now vanity has won out - vanity and the need to see it all one more time.

As she sorts through her photographs with Tyke, the son she abandoned for her lover and for World War II, each image projects Cory into one of the split-seconds that have strung themselves together as her life. Her pictures give her back the story of her past - from her beginnings in Pointe au Baril, Ontario, a place of rocky islands and forests; to her days in London, England, where she honed her skills as a photographer and met the great love of her life; to war-ravaged Europe where she worked as a war correspondent for Lord Beaverbrook, travelling with the ranks of soldiers, earning fame as "the girl photographer"; to her self-imposed exile at a fishing cabin in Safe Harbour.

Together, Cory and Tyke retrace the dramatic and sometimes painful path that has led them to the present. Mother and son reclaim each other, and relive an extraordinary woman's life.


]]> 394117 3.12 52 13 1996 2124483 0316319848 9780316319843 0 <![CDATA[Immaculate Conception Photography Gallery and Other Stories]]> http://www.goodreads.com/images/nocover-111x148.jpg http://www.goodreads.com/images/nocover-60x80.jpg http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/2124483.Immaculate_Conception_Photography_Gallery_and_Other_Stories 4.00 3 394117 3.12 52 13 1996 744061 1886913048 9781886913042 0 <![CDATA[Without a Guide: Contemporary Women's Travel Adventures]]> http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1177947056m/744061.jpg http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1177947056s/744061.jpg http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/744061.Without_a_Guide_Contemporary_Women_s_Travel_Adventures 3.00 3 394117 3.12 52 13 1994 1540000 0679310991 9780679310990 0 <![CDATA[The Truth Teller]]> http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1184920590m/1540000.jpg http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1184920590s/1540000.jpg http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1540000.The_Truth_Teller 5.00 1 Toronto Life about violent girl gangs when she realized she wanted to use the material in a novel. Having two teenaged children at home allowed her to eavesdrop as she researched the characters for her novel. One character in particular intrigued her: Cassandra, the truth teller.

In The Truth Teller, the Manor School for Classical Studies is an exclusive private institution in a leafy enclave of Toronto, dedicated to redeeming the wayward children of the well-to-do. For generations, Headmaster Dugald Laird and his wife, Francesca Morrow, united by romance and a common purpose, have laboured to fill their students’ hearts and minds with the ideals of truth and beauty. Now, increasingly, the classes only divide the students' time between cigarette breaks, graffiti wars and drug deals; the teenagers have “headphones clamped to their ears and rings pierced into their crotches,” and a habit of carving their own flesh. Enter the new girl, Cassie. Overweight, unfashionable and nervous, she also has an annoying habit of blurting out uncomfortable truths. Offering assistance during a savage street fight, she is recruited into the rebel girl gang known as the Dead Ladies.

Meanwhile, cracks are beginning to show in the perfect marriage shared by Dugald and Francesca. Dugald is haunted by memories. As if waking from a dream, he realizes that, immersed in his love for ideals, the classics, and Francesca, he has left behind what now seems so real – the family he spurned fifty years ago. For her part, Francesca is convinced Dugald’s spirit will be revived during the school’s annual pilgrimage to the ancient ruins of Delphi. Under the hot Greek sun, however, the fabric of illusion will be burned away.

The Truth Teller, Govier's sixth novel, became a national bestseller. Reviewers describe her as a novelist at the height of her powers, whose skill and imagination were in full force as she fashioned a complex story around deeply drawn, memorable characters. With characteristic energy, wit and insight she explores today’s urban life, revealing the intimate moments that shape our lives and define our times. The novel is tinged by a subtle apocalyptic vision, revealed through the “junk world” of the teenagers, and set against the beauty of a culture two thousand years old.

The novel is also richly coloured by Govier’s travels in Greece and by allusions to classical literature. In ancient Greece, Cassandra was the young priestess of Apollo who foresaw Troy’s doom; Apollo’s curse left Cassandra able to see the future but never to be believed by those she tried to warn. Govier casts her, in this contemporary tale, as a rebel girl, modelled on city squeegee kids with “turquoise hair and tattoos.” Cassie carries the weight of her ancient past, reminding us, as Gary Draper noted in Books in Canada, that Govier’s stories often work simultaneously as naturalistic fiction and as fables.]]> 394117 3.12 52 13 2000 3443313 0006393764 9780006393764 0 <![CDATA[Fables of Brunswick Avenue]]> http://www.goodreads.com/images/nocover-111x148.jpg http://www.goodreads.com/images/nocover-60x80.jpg http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/3443313.Fables_of_Brunswick_Avenue 4.00 1 394117 3.12 52 13 1985 1540004 1551991071 9781551991078 1 <![CDATA[Solo]]> http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1184920590m/1540004.jpg http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1184920590s/1540004.jpg http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1540004.Solo 3.00 1
In this compelling collection of essays, fifteen internationally acclaimed novelists, poets, and nonfiction writers share the personal journeys they felt impelled to make. Among them, Booker Prize winner Margaret Atwood travels to the northern site where the members of the Franklin expedition perished. Roddy Doyle (Ireland) takes us to the 1989 World Cup. Nuruddin Farah, described by the New York Review of Books as “the most important African novelist to emerge in the last twenty-five years,” returns to his native, war-torn Somalia. Orange Prize winner Kate Grenville (Australia) travels to the bush and the house of a convict ancestor. Douglas Coupland takes us on an airplane. Ivan Klíma (Czech Republic), whose books and plays have been translated into 29 languages, visits the concentration camp where he was interned as a boy. Mark Kurlansky (U.S.), bestselling author of Cod and Salt, spends a week in a medieval monastery listening to plainchant. Wendy Law-Yone (Myanmar), author of The Coffin Tree and Irrawaddy Tango, follows the road that brought her Chinese and British ancestors to Burma. The Booker Prize-nominated Michael Collins (Ireland) writes of a foot race high in the Himalayas. And the editor of this collection, Katherine Govier, visits the grave of Miyamoto Musashi, the sixteenth-century Japanese sword master.]]> 394117 3.12 52 13 2004 1540001 0670841919 9780670841912 0 <![CDATA[Hearts of flame]]> http://www.goodreads.com/images/nocover-111x148.jpg http://www.goodreads.com/images/nocover-60x80.jpg http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1540001.Hearts_of_flame 2.00 1 394117 3.12 52 13 1991 7035260 0786259264 9780786259267 0 <![CDATA[Creation]]> http://www.goodreads.com/images/nocover-111x148.jpg http://www.goodreads.com/images/nocover-60x80.jpg http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/7035260-creation 0.0 0 394117 3.12 52 13 2003