Kate Story

Kate Story is a genderqueer writer and performer. A Newfoundlander living in Ontario, her first novel Blasted received the Sunburst Award’s honourable mention, swiftly followed by Wrecked Upon This Shore. Her short fiction has been shortlisted for the Sunburst Award and CBC literary award, published in World Fantasy-winning and Aurora Award-winning collections, and in Imaginarium 4: The Best Canadian Speculative Writing. Kate’s third novel This Insubstantial Pageant was reviewed by the Toronto Star as a “top science-fiction read… exotic, funny and very sexy.” Her first young adult fantasy novel Antilia: Sword and Song was longlisted for the Sunburst Award. “You know a good book as soon as you start it. It sings to you and makes an immediate connection. That’s what happened to me with Kate Story’s Antilia. I loved everything about the book.” (Charles de Lint). The Antilia duology was selected as Highly Recommended by CM: Canadian Review of Materials.

This fall sees the release of Urchin, a YA historical fantasy novel with Running the Goat Books and Broadsides. “A sprawling, lyrical historical fantasy.” (Kirkus Reviews).

Next year Exile Press releases Kate’s short fiction collection Ferry Back the Gifts.

Kate also writes plays and devises performance works, often cross-discipline collaborations with other artists. Nearly 30 of her works have been presented in Peterborough, Toronto, and St. John’s, and she was part of the innovative Neighbourhood Dance Works’ exciting New Chapter dance project, bringing together Newfoundland dance artists for an 3-year process with choreographers Christopher House and Anne Troake.

Kate is artistic director of the Precarious Festivals, which explore precarity through innovative arts-community partnerships, and director of Public Energy’s Alternating Currents program, committed to developing the performance practices of regional artists. She is a recipient of the Ontario Arts Foundation’s K.M. Hunter Artist Award for Theatre.