Dr Catherine Coldstream
Catherine Coldstream spent 12 years as a Carmelite nun, before studying Theology at Oxford and Life Writing at UEA, going on to earn a PhD in Creative Writing from Goldsmiths, London. She is a the author of Cloistered: my Years as a Nun, (Chatto & Windus, 2024) and editor of William Coldstream Remembered: Portraits of a Painter (Sansom & Co, 2025), as well as of numerous essays, short stories, and poems, many of them published in journals and anthologies. Her memoir has been published in the States by St Martin's Press and, in Czech translation, by Práh Editions in Prague, adapted for radio (as BBC Radio 4's Book of the Week) and serialised in the Observer and the Saturday Telegraph.
Catherine has written and presented for Radio 3 (The Essay), appeared as a guest on Radio 4's Free Thinking, the Sunday morning programme, and Saturday Live, as well as on Radio 3's The Verb with Ian McMillan and guests. Further afield, she has been interviewed on BBC Scotland, BBC Wales, and on NPR's Fresh Air podcast in the States by Terry Gross. In demand as a speaker, Catherine has preached at St John's College, Cambridge and Lady Margaret Hall, Oxford, and lectured at the Temenos Academy, London. She has appeared in conversation at many literary festivals including Wigtown, Bath, Bridport, Norwich, the Boswell Book Festival, the Festival of Faith and Literature, and at the Chalke History Festival in discussion with Mark Vernon and Martin Shaw.
Shortlisted for the TLS Ackerley Prize 2025, the Hatchard's and Biographers' Club First Biography Prize, 2024, and chosen as one of Prospect Magazine's Books of the Year, Cloistered is the product of a long, slow process of mulling, soul-searching, and attention to the craft of writing. Mentoring and manuscript advice draw on years of experience as a secondary school teacher, a love of communicating ideas, and an enthusiasm for creativity. Beyond theology and monasticism, although never far from these obsessions, Catherine writes about music and the visual arts. She is a keen amateur viola player, pianist, and choral singer, and divides her time between Oxford and the Malvern Hills.
