Kathryn Kuitenbrouwer

Kathryn Kuitenbrouwer (born February 6, 1965) is a Canadian novelist, short story writer, and writing mentor.

Kathryn Kuitenbrouwer
Born	(1965-02-06) February 6, 1965 (age 60)
Occupation	novelist, short story writer
Nationality	Canadian
Period	2000s-present
Notable works	Way Up, The Nettle Spinner, All the Broken Things
Website
Official website

Early life

Kuitenbrouwer was born in Ottawa, Ontario, and later moved to Toronto.^[1]

Career

Her debut short story collection, Way Up, was published in 2003.^[2] It was a shortlisted finalist for the Danuta Gleed Literary Award^[3] and the ReLit Award for short fiction in 2004. Her first novel, The Nettle Spinner, was published in 2005, and was a shortlisted nominee for the Amazon.ca First Novel Award.^[4] Her second novel, Perfecting, followed in 2009.^[5] Her most recent novel, All the Broken Things, was published in 2014 by Random House of Canada.^[3][6] It was a shortlisted finalist for the Toronto Book Award,^[7] long listed for Canada Reads in 2016, and was a national bestseller.

Kuitenbrouwer has also been a book reviewer for The Globe and Mail and the National Post, and has published short fiction in Granta, The Walrus, Numéro Cinq, Significant Objects, Maclean's Magazine, and Storyville.^[8]

In 2018, Kuitenbrouwer received a Ph.D. in English literature from the University of Toronto, where she was supervised by Mari Ruti. Her Ph.D. thesis is a psychoanalytic investigation into creativity, with special attention to the British novel in the eighteenth century.

In 2023 she published the novel Wait Softly Brother,^[9] which was longlisted for the Giller Prize.^[10]

As of 2025, Kuitenbrouwer is a writing mentor in the Master of Fine Arts in Fiction program at the University of King's College in Halifax, Nova Scotia.^[11]