Catherine Barter author page

Catherine Barter biography

Catherine Barter is a British YA author and bookseller. She studied American literature at the University of East Anglia and completed a PhD on the work of Sherman Alexie.

Her debut YA novel, Troublemakers, was published by Andersen Press in 2017. The novel follows fifteen-year-old Alena as she investigates political secrets connected with her family. Troublemakers was shortlisted for the Waterstones Children’s Book Prize 2018 and longlisted for the Branford Boase Award 2018.

Barter’s second novel, We Played with Fire, was published by Andersen Press in 2021. The book is based on the story of the Fox sisters, whose claims of spirit communication helped start the nineteenth-century Spiritualist movement in the United States.

Before and alongside her writing, Barter worked in a library, a bookshop and for an organisation campaigning for garment workers’ rights. She has also co-managed Housmans Bookshop, a radical independent bookshop in King’s Cross.

We Played with Fire won the Young Quills Historical Fiction Award and was nominated for the Carnegie Medal.