Cathy Marie Buchanan

Cathy Marie Buchanan is a Toronto-based writer. The Day the Falls Stood Still, her debut novel, was published in North America in 2009 and Italy and the UK in 2010. It immediately became a New York Times bestseller. The novel was chosen as a Barnes & Noble Recommends selection, a Barnes & Noble Best of 2009 book, an American Booksellers Association Indie Next pick and a CBC Canada Reads Top 40 Essential Canadian Novel of the Decade. Inspired by the life of Niagara's most famous riverman, William "Red" Hill, the novel chronicles early hydroelectric development on the Niagara River.
The Painted Girls, her second novel, sold at auction in the US to Riverhead Books/Penguin Group, in Canada to HarperCollins and in the UK to Blackfriars/Little, Brown and Company. The Painted Girls is set in belle époque Paris and was inspired by the real-life model, Marie van Goethem, for Edgar Degas’s Little Dancer Aged Fourteen. Published January 2013, The Painted Girls has received enthusiastic reviews (Kirkus, The Globe and Mail, The Washington Post, People, Entertainment Weekly, USA Today) and has garnered favourable notices in Vanity Fair, Vogue, Good Housekeeping, Chicago Tribune, Costco Connection, Harper's Bazaar, The Boston Globe, San Francisco Chronicle and Chatelaine. Also an IndieNext pick, The Painted Girls debuted on the New York Times bestsellers list and is a #1 national bestseller in Canada.
Previously, Cathy Marie's stories have appeared in some of Canada's most respected literary journals: The Antigonish Review, The Dalhousie Review, Descant, The New Quarterly and Quarry. She has been awarded grants by the Ontario Arts Council and the Toronto Arts Council.
Buchanan holds a BSc (Honours Biochemistry) and an MBA from the University of Western Ontario and was born and raised in Niagara Falls, Ontario.
As at 2013, Buchanan is at work on a third novel.