Catherine Chanter Books In Order

Publication Order of Standalone Novels

Publication Order of Collections

Catherine Chanter is an author, poet, short story writer, and teacher.

She won the Yeovil Poetry Prize and the Lucy Cavendish Prize from Cambridge University. She grew up in the West Country, a place that is still close to her heart. She received a scholarship to read English literature at Oxford and then went on to work more as a lobbyist in the United Kingdom and the United States.

Catherine became disillusioned with the political process and went back to England. There she got re-trained as a teacher and has led education provision for vulnerable and excluded young people in many different settings. This includes Pupil Referral Units, the Tavistock and Portman Trust, and in-patient adolescent mental health provision. She also says that she is a passionate believer when it comes to the therapeutic power of learning.

Catherine says that from a young age, she was constantly writing. However, she did not end up seeking publication until later in life. That was when she got the courage to join an Adult Education evening class in creative writing. Her tutors Jane Draycott and Jenny Lewis gave her the confidence to submit poetry and short stories to different competitions.

Chanter would go on to get more recognition with the awarding of the Asham Award, the Bristol Short Story Prize, and different poetry anthologies. Cinnamon Press would also publish her novella and collection of short stories Rooms of the Mind, and Chanter at last started to think of herself as a writer.

Chanter says that much of the writing that she does draws from not only her own life story but from her work and the poems that were part of the BAAF Anthology of Writing by Adopted Adults also draw from her life story. She says that much in the same vein her Paddy’s Story (broadcast on BBC Radio 4) and her commissioned series Summer Report were both inspired by the challenges that she has seen some of the extraordinary young people that she knows overcome.

The author would then go on to attend Oxford Brookes and receive a Masters in Creative Writing with distinction. The Well would go on to win The Lucy Cavendish Prize. When it was first published, Chanter was selected as ‘An Observer New Face of Fiction’ as well as “One to Watch’ by the Huffington Post and an Amazon Rising Star.

Once Chanter released her second novel The Half Sister, her attention was pulled back to poetry and the process of completing her memoir. A Child in the Middle was a multi-genre narrative nonfiction work that helped tell the author’s own adoption story, peppered with different professional reflections and observations. Today she is still involved with work in the adoption and fostering arenas.

Catherine has also taught Creative Writing as an Associate Lecturer at the University of Worcester. Chanter recounts that the largest current influence on her writing now is the landscape. Catherine resides somewhere that she describes as ‘the middle of nowhere’ and says that she spends a lot of time walking, thinking, and getting wet.

The Well is a 2015 book by Catherine Chanter. If you have been wanting to get familiar with the work of more authors and don’t know where to start, check out this book that Publishers Weekly said was a ‘mesmerizing read’ and referred to it as ‘striking prose’ in a starred review.

This book is set in modern Britain where water appears to be running out everywhere, except at the farm of a seemingly regular family who may find that their strange good fortune leads to an act of violence that will shock everyone.

Main character Ruth Ardingly makes the long drive up from the city with her family in their dirty car to see The Well, and when she does, all of the family finds themselves enamored with this beautiful farm that seems to give them everything that they are looking for.

For Ruth, it’s an opportunity to start again and have a high quality of life. For her husband, it’s an escape. For their grandson, it is a home. When the drought comes along, it appears that everything starts changing. The farm is surrounded by 30 acres of greenery and is somehow thriving while the outside world is dealing with one of the biggest dry spells ever to be recorded. Things are going ‘well’ for The Well, but not even the owners understand why this is happening.

However, it is only a matter of time before the prosperity provided by The Well comes at a price. Their neighbors are envious, wanting to have what they have. The family also has to deal with more and more, such as the government mandates, the fanaticism of the religious order the Sisters of the Rose, and the daily difficulties of doing their best to try and stay close as wife and husband and as grandmother and child. Slowly, it will all build up until it leads to a crime that will shock everyone.

This place was a paradise, but it’s quickly becoming a jail. Can the family keep this place as their home or will they find that there is too much stacked against them to stay? Read The Well to find out what happens!

A Child in the Middle is a 2022 book by Catherine Chanter. Looking for an interesting nonfiction book to read or have a personal tie to adoption? This is a great book for you to read, featuring Chanter’s personal and professional viewpoint as she tells her own story.

At the center of this story is her own tale of the search that she has done for her birth parents. This is a journey that has many twists. Catherine has spent her entire working life sitting on different adoption panels and working to support vulnerable kids who come from fractured families.

Through the course of her work, Chanter has obtained a lot of knowledge and understanding on adoption that she shares with the reader. Historical documents, case studies, poems, and correspondence come together, as well as stories of moments of great joy and loss.

Interwoven are vignettes that showcase the ties that Catherine has to the landscape and her reflections on what nature is able to tell us about roots, revival, resilience and more. Whether you have personal experience with adoption or not, this is an interesting and informative book that you won’t want to miss. Check out A Child in the Middle to follow along from start to finish.