Cathleen With is a Vancouver-based writer and teacher. Her first book of short stories, "skids", was published in 2006 with Arsenal Pulp Press. Many of the stories are based on her friends’ voices, some now gone, and Cathleen's own experiences battling addictions and depression in her youth. "Having Faith in the Polar Girls' Prison" is her first novel and was published in 2009 with Penguin Group Canada. It was inspired by her years of teaching in the North and won the 2010 Ethel Wilson Fiction Prize from the BC Book Prizes. Cathleen completed her Master’s degree in Creative Writing at UBC and has worked as a teacher in Inuvik and Seoul.