About Cate

Cate Touryan writes short stories, creative nonfiction, and novels. She holds an MA in English and a Juris Doctorate, is a freelance editor, and teaches academic and technical writing. 

Her childhood aspiration to spin straw into gold fizzled as she realized how steep the cost—trading in her firstborn. So she did a more socially acceptable thing. She began to write, spinning the ordinary into story.

When not writing, she enjoys anything that will give her a view but that keeps her feet on the ground and video chats her daughters often, who—perhaps fearing she might indeed trade them—live in a
time zone 9 hours ahead. 

Cate lives on the central coast of California with her husband, her Yorkie, and a rafter of turkeys—as in both a whole bunch of them and in the rafters. She has yet to spin them into story, but when she does, she’ll make sure it’s gold.

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Turning Toward Eden

For most 14-year-olds, California summers in the 1970s mean sun and surf, the waves sleek and the sand warm despite the Cold War. But not for Eden. Thanks to her AWOL father, Eden’s life is in a tailspin, landing her wrong side up in a remote beach town, good for pier fishing and gossip and not much else. Caught in her parents’ own cold war, Eden finds solace by singing with the church choir on Sundays and gambling in poker matches on Fridays, ditching her severely disabled brother every chance she gets. After all, if Mama hadn’t insisted he return home from the institution, they’d still be a family, with a home in the city. 

Distracting Eden from her misery is the arrival of an immigrant girl, as mysterious as Eden is miserable. When a series of disturbing crimes rattles the town, rumors pin the blame on the “Commie,” sending Eden in pursuit of the truth. What begins with curiosity rapidly becomes a dangerous dance as Eden stumbles onto Raven’s secret—and finds that chasing another is easier than facing herself.

Grand Prize, San Francisco Writers Contest; the SCBWI Grant Award, CenCal Region; Cascade Award, OCW; Genesis Finalist ACFW

Other Writings

“Echoes of Armenia” – Essay
1st Place, Ingrid Reti Literary Award, ARTS Obispo

‘‘To be born Armenian is to become a remnant,” my grandfather once told me. I sat on his shoulders as we walked through the highlands. “What are remnants?” “Autumn flowers. The reds and browns of dead seasons.” He picked a flower, crushed the rusted petals, and held the sweetness to…

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“A Note in the Margin” – Flash Fiction
2nd Place, WOW Women on Writing

She lives next door, in a house where words vanish, the wind slipping through cracks to steal, sweeping syllables from the cobwebbed corners, shooing phrases out from behind gauzy drapes, stripping thoughts bare. She does not recognize the theft at first. A stumble, a pause.  “What?” We are chatting over…

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“The Auction” – Creative Nonfiction
1st Place, Golden Quill Writing Contest

Within the pages of newspapers, spun across seemingly disparate facts, unseen threads spool out, span and tangle, weave stories that glisten into sight only rarely. And usually without poetic aesthetic. Take this: two items reported three months apart but occurring on the same day:  Notice of trustee’s sale: The property…

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“The Blue Room” – Flash Fiction
Honorable Mention, WOW Women on Writing

The crash jolts me from my desk, the thwack and rattle of glass. A bird has collided with the window, perhaps a robin or mourning dove. I scan the balcony, the tree tops, the yard below. On the window, tufts of feathers quiver. I see the faint imprint of a…

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“The Caravans of Hayastan” – Flash Fiction

Tribes crashed down the rocky slopes, a landslide of death.  “Grandfather!” The boy gripped the gnarled hand. The old voice gurgled, a bayonet. “They cannot kill the soul.”  A horse reared, the gendarme snatching the boy’s sister, slinging her to his saddle, and with her, locked in her arms, the…

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“Time Ran Out When” – Flash Fiction

Time ran out when the night faded and dawn crept into the bedchamber, slicing across the bride’s ashen face.  “Take her!” the king shouts, though he need not, the story the same. Today the king will marry again. Tomorrow the bride will die. The only story he knows: a woman’s…

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