Catherine Bateson

Award winning Australian author Catherine Bateson credits a childhood spent in a used bookstore with sparking her career as a poet and author of young-adult fiction. A published poet, Bateson made the transition to fiction by creating A Dangerous Girl and its sequel, The Year It All Happened, verse novels that reflect the concerns and speech of modern Australian teens. In Painted Love Letters she tells the story of Chrissie, a teen who must deal with the death of her mother to lung cancer and the tragedy's effect on other family members, while Rain May and Captain Daniel finds an inner-city mother and daughter adapting to platypus, fruit bats, and other quirks of life in rural Australia. In addition to writing novels and poetry, Bateston has worked as a creative writing teacher for over a decade. In her spare time she hosts writing workshops for students and appears at poetry and writing festivals.

Career

Creative writing teacher and writer.

Awards, Honors

Book of the Year designation, Children's Book Council of Australia (CBCA), for Rain May and Captain Daniel; CBCA Honour Book for Older Readers designation, and Australian Family Therapists' Award, both 2003, both for Painted Love Letters; New South Wales Premier's Literary Award, and Queensland Premier's Literary Award, both 2003, both for Painted Love Letters, and Rain May and Captain Daniel; John Shaw Neilson Award.

Writings

For Young Adults

• A Dangerous Girl, University of Queensland Press (St. Lucia, Queensland, Australia), 2000.
• The Year It All Happened, University of Queensland Press (St. Lucia, Queensland, Australia), 2001.
• Painted Love Letters, University of Queensland Press (St. Lucia, Queensland, Australia.), 2002.
• Rain May and Captain Daniel, University of Queensland Press (St. Lucia, Queensland, Australia), 2002.
• The Airdancer of Glass, 2004.

Other

• Pomegranates from the Underworld (poetry), Pariah Press, 1990.
• The Vigilant Heart (poetry), University of Queenland Press (St. Lucia, Queensland, Australia), 1998.


• Also author of short fiction.

Work in Progress

A junior fiction novel, Millie and the Night Heron; the young-adult novel His Name in Fire; a new volume of poetry.

Biographical and Critical Sources

Online

• Catherine Bateson Web site,http://www.catherine-bateson.com (October 22, 2004).
• University of Queensland Press Web site, http://www.uqp.edu.au/ (July 23, 2004), "Catherine Bateson."*