The School of Creative Writing is pleased to congratulate Kate Armstrong, MFA. Kate’s graduate thesis is an adventure novel entitled Bluewater.
Kate served thirteen years in the military as a Logistics Officer and later spent two decades in the corporate world of electricity trading before realizing her dream of becoming a writer. She entered the MFA program as the award-winning author of her memoir, The Stone Frigate: The Royal Military College’s First Female Cadet Speaks Out, published in 2019. The book won the 2020 Ontario Historical Society Alison Prentice Award for the Best Book on Women’s History and was a finalist for the 2020 Rakuten Kobo Emerging Writer Prize in Nonfiction. Her memoir’s success ignited a passion for literary prose and dreams of becoming a novelist.
Bluewater is an adventure drama novel centred on Claire Wilde, who experiences a catastrophic loss with the death of her husband and makes an impulsive decision to embark on an offshore sailing expedition with a rogue named Henry Slater. In the confined space of a sailboat on the open ocean, tensions flare, secrets are unveiled, and unresolved dysfunction surfaces. The microcosm of their inner struggles and relationship dynamics is mirrored in the macrocosm of the weather and the forces of nature throughout their journey. Bluewater explores liberation from harmful decision-making and highlights the restorative power of nature.
Contact
Request more information about Kate’s thesis project using our Grad Showcase Contact Form.