author photograph by Keiko Ikeuchi
Welcome to my website! Thank you for visiting. I am a writer, mentor, and editor. Author of Cloistered: my Years as a Nun, my work has been published in the UK (Chatto & Windus, 2024,), the US (St Martin's Press, 2024), and the Czech Republic (Práh, 2024), adapted for radio (as BBC Radio 4's Book of the Week, April 2024) and serialised in the Observer and the Saturday Telegraph. I have 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, and have been interviewed on BBC Scotland, BBC Wales, and Write About Now. Last year I had the huge pleasure of being interviewed by Terry Gross on NPR's Fresh Air podcast in the States.
Since then I have written and presented for Radio 3 (The Essay, 9th and 10th October 2025) , spoken at Mansfield College and LMH, Oxford, and at St John's College Cambridge, delivered lectures including for the Temenos Academy, and appeared in conversation at literary festivals including Wigtown, Bath, Bridport, Norwich, the Boswell Book Festival, the Festival of Faith and Literature, and at the Chalke History Festival.
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. Since its publication I have written features and reviews for the Tablet, Catholic Herald, Church Times, and the TLS. With a PhD from London (Goldsmiths) and degrees from the Universities of Oxford and UEA I am now married to Neil, play the viola and piano whenever I get the chance, enjoy choral singing, and divide my time between Oxford and the Malvern Hills.
Since then I have written and presented for Radio 3 (The Essay, 9th and 10th October 2025) , spoken at Mansfield College and LMH, Oxford, and at St John's College Cambridge, delivered lectures including for the Temenos Academy, and appeared in conversation at literary festivals including Wigtown, Bath, Bridport, Norwich, the Boswell Book Festival, the Festival of Faith and Literature, and at the Chalke History Festival.
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. Since its publication I have written features and reviews for the Tablet, Catholic Herald, Church Times, and the TLS. With a PhD from London (Goldsmiths) and degrees from the Universities of Oxford and UEA I am now married to Neil, play the viola and piano whenever I get the chance, enjoy choral singing, and divide my time between Oxford and the Malvern Hills.
Some recent commissioned articles I have written, on topics from music to mysticism ...
TLS
https://www.the-tls.com/authors/catherine-coldstream
The Tablet:
5th June 2025: https://www.thetablet.co.uk/features/tongues-of-fire-a-former-cloistered-nun-recalls-pentecost/
14th August 2025: https://www.thetablet.co.uk/features/life-in-the-cloister-when-the-balloons-came-to-carmel/
17th December 2025: https://www.thetablet.co.uk/features/gods-light-shine-sover-the-cloister/
The Church Times:
20th March 2026: https://www.churchtimes.co.uk/articles/2026/20-march/regulars/notebook/notebook-catherine-coldstream
Other essays and features include those commissioned by the Catholic Herald, MONK Arts Magazine, of which I was contributing editor for several years pre-2020, and the Temenos Academy Review.
https://www.the-tls.com/authors/catherine-coldstream
The Tablet:
5th June 2025: https://www.thetablet.co.uk/features/tongues-of-fire-a-former-cloistered-nun-recalls-pentecost/
14th August 2025: https://www.thetablet.co.uk/features/life-in-the-cloister-when-the-balloons-came-to-carmel/
17th December 2025: https://www.thetablet.co.uk/features/gods-light-shine-sover-the-cloister/
The Church Times:
20th March 2026: https://www.churchtimes.co.uk/articles/2026/20-march/regulars/notebook/notebook-catherine-coldstream
Other essays and features include those commissioned by the Catholic Herald, MONK Arts Magazine, of which I was contributing editor for several years pre-2020, and the Temenos Academy Review.
I still haven't got round to SubStack (give me time) and am not often active on social media, but occasionally post on Facebook: @CloisteredWriter, and can very occasionally be found loitering on Instagram ...