About

Me, with a bookcase I made

Hello, I’m Cath Barton, a writer of novellas, short stories, flash fiction and reviews. I used to say I’d never write a novel, but I’ve now got a couple of those in the pipeline too!

Over recent years I’ve had quite a bit of short fiction published in print and, especially, online. Go to my Stories page to find out where and to read some examples.

I’m now challenging myself to write longer fiction. My novella The Plankton Collector  (2018) won the New Welsh Writing Awards AmeriCymru Prize for the Novella 2017 and is now published by New Welsh Review under their Rarebyte imprint. It also received a Special Mention in the Saboteur Award for the Novella 2019.

My second novella In the Sweep of the Bay (2020) was published by Louise Walters Books  in paperback and e-book, and as an audio book from Audible or itunes. It was Shortlisted in the Saboteur Awards in 2021.

My third novella, Between the Virgin and the Sea, set in a fictitious city on the edge of a continent, where a boy dreams his future, was published in March 2023 in Novella Express #3 by Leamington Books.

My novella-in-flash set in my hometown of Abergavenny, The Geography of the Heart, was published in December 2023 by Arroyo Seco Press.

I have also completed a collection of short stories, inspired by the fantastical pictures of the Dutch artist Hieronymus Bosch, for which I was mentored by the novelist and short story writer Catherine Merriman courtesy of  Literature Wales. A selection from this collection was published in March 2024 by Atomic Bohemian under the title Mr Bosch and His Owls.

Current projects include:

• • a magical realism novel-in-flash inspired by the life of my Auntie Phyllis, who was a famous circus artiste, out on submission.
  • an expansion of In the Sweep of the Bay to a full-length novel, in draft.
  • a  novel set in Kathmandu and Wales in the aftermath of an earthquake, in draft.

I often use pictures to inspire my writing and I take a photograph every day, which you can see here.

You can find links to my reviews and articles on my Critical Writing page.

My home is in Abergavenny, South Wales, with my husband Oliver and our cat Feely.