About Katherine
Katherine was awarded the Order of Canada in 2019.
Katherine’s novels, short stories and anthologies of travel writing have been published around the English-speaking world and in translation for over forty years. Evocative, timely fiction has alternated with historical novels about artists and others who were ahead of their time. She is renowned for her exceptional research and evocative settings, whether they be in Japan, off the coast of Atlantic Canada, in wartime London, Georgian Bay, or Toronto’s Brunswick Avenue.
A new novel about Katsushika Oei, Red Fuji and the Boston Boys, has been published in Japan by Sairyusha, translated by Yoko Morgenstern. Then continue with the existing paragraph (Her most recent novel to be published in English…), and add the note that The Three Sisters Bar & Hotel will be released in audiobook form in September. Her most recent novel to be published in English is The Three Sisters Bar & Hotel, set in Canada’s Rocky Mountains. Govier’s previous novel, The Ghost Brush, also about Oi, was published in Japan and worldwide. An earlier novel, Creation, was a New York Times Notable Book of the Year. Katherine has won the Toronto Book Award and Canada’s Findley-Engel Award for a mid-career writer (1997). In 2018, she was honoured for Excellence in the Arts by the Canadian Civil Liberties Association. In 2019, she was made a Member of the Order of Canada. Next up, Katherine will return with Lights Out on Brunswick Avenue.
Active in her profession, and always committed to raising the voices of marginalized women, Katherine has been President of PEN Canada and Chair of The Writers’ Trust. She co-founded the national schools writing program Writers in Electronic Residence and more recently founded, directed, and was Board Chair of The Shoe Project, a writing and public speaking workshop for immigrant and refugee women. In 2024, The Shoe Project was taken over by YWCA Canada which continues to run it across Canada.
Katherine was born in Edmonton, Alberta, and attended The University of Alberta and York University. She has two adult children, Robin and Emily, and two grandchildren. With her partner Nick Rundall, a retired publisher, she divides her time between Toronto, Ontario and Canmore, Alberta.
THE SHOE PROJECT
Katherine started The Shoe Project in Toronto in 2011. She knew newcomer women had much to give to Canada but were often sidelined by lack of writing and speaking skills in English. Knowing that women especially- journalists, teachers, psychologists, nannies or homemakers- were eager to join the Canadian conversation, she created a writing workshop for them.
When Elizabeth Semmelhack, now Creative Director of The Bata Shoe Museum, offered the use of the museum’s lunchroom as a meeting place, it became obvious that the topic would be shoes. So it began, with twelve women from five continents sitting around a table, drinking tea. In wide-ranging and often emotional conversations, they explored “the shoes I left behind,” “the shoes I wore to cross the border,” and “the shoes I dreamed I would wear in my new life.”
THE SHOE PROJECT was active across Canada for twelve years. It held workshops and performances in cities from the east coast to the west, including Halifax, Antigonish, Kingston, Toronto, Brampton, Windsor, Winnipeg, Calgary, Canmore, Edmonton and Vancouver. In 2023 The Shoe Project ceased operating as a charitable organization, and became a program of the YWCA Canada. This is a brilliant step-up and begins the next chapter of The Shoe Project. Learn more about the YWCA’s activities here:
https://ywcacanada.ca/what-we-do/projects-initiatives/the-shoe-project/
And, bonus! The 350 ‘shoe stories’ our participants have written and performed, celebrating their arrival in Canada, remain online and can be freely accessed.
Find them here:
www.theshoeprojectstories.com
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