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Cathy Glass (author)

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Cathy Glass
OccupationAuthor, writer, foster carer
NationalityBritish
GenreInspirational memoirs, fiction
Website
http://www.cathyglass.co.uk/

Cathy Glass is a British author, freelance writer and foster carer.

Her work is strongly identified with both the True Life Stories and Inspirational Memoirs genres. Glass has also written a parenting guide to bringing up children, Happy Kids, and a novel, The Girl in the Mirror, based on a true story.[1]

Glass has been a foster career for 25 years, during which time she has fostered more than 100 children.[2] Her fostering memoirs tell the stories of some of the children who came in to her care, many of whom had suffered abuse.

The first title, Damaged, was number one in the Sunday Times bestsellers charts in hardback and paperback.[3][4] Her next two titles, Hidden and Cut, have also reached the non-fiction bestseller charts in The Times.[5][6][7]

The name "Cathy Glass" is a pseudonym. The author writes under a nom de plume due to the sensitive nature of her source material.[8] The names of the children she writes about are likewise altered.

The author is represented by literary agent Andrew Lownie[8] and published by HarperCollins.[9]

Early life and fostering

Glass used to work for the Civil Service but left to start a family. The author decided to foster a child after trying unsuccessfully for a baby with then husband John; she had seen an advert in her local paper seeking a foster home for a girl named Mary and applied.[10]

Glass and her husband were assessed as foster carers - a process that now takes about a year - but they discovered Mary had been found another foster home.[10]

Instead, they fostered a 15-year-old boy called Jack, who had been removed from his home after his stepfather broke his nose. The couple looked after Jack while his father, who was at the time living in a bedsit, found a suitable flat.[10]

Three months into his stay, Cathy discovered she was pregnant with her son Adrian. Despite having a baby, Glass continued to foster, taking on Dawn, a shy and polite 13-year-old who Cathy came to treat as a daughter.[10]

Dawn proved much harder to parent due to her background and in the end had to move to a residential home with professional therapeutic help. Over the last 23 years, Glass has fostered over 50 children aged 0 to 16, including several like Dawn who, as a result of past experience, had behavioural issues.[10]

Because of the challenging behaviour and special needs of many of these children Glass usually only takes one child at a time. Some have stayed for a few nights or weeks while others for a year or two.[10]

She went on to have another child of her own, Paula, now in her late teens, and also adopted Lucy, now in her early 20s, following a long-term foster placement.[10] In an interview with the Daily Mail, written by Kate Hilpern and published in February 2009, Glass listed some of the abusive backgrounds the children she has cared for have come from.

At the extreme end, these include being forced into prostitution and having to work in a sweatshop. Many of the foster children had been physically or sexually abused and a large number had come into care as a result of severe neglect.[10]

Fostering and parenting expertise

As a foster carer,[11] Glass receives ongoing foster training and because of her experience she is asked to take on some of the more challenging children in the system.[10]

In 2010, Glass released Happy Kids: The secret to raising well-behaved, contented children - based on her own child-rearing experiences.[12]

It introduces the reader to Glass's own 3 Rs technique: Request, Repeat, Reassure.[13]

Writing career

Glass combines fostering with occasional freelance journalism and commercial writing. Before the release of Damaged she had written on health and social issues for The Guardian and the Evening Standard.[5]

She is also a published fiction writer, with poems and short stories in a number of commercial magazines.[14]

Glass's first book, Damaged was released by HarperCollins in 2007. It focuses on the relationship between Glass and Jodie, an abused child.[15] Jodie had been at the centre of a paedophile ring before being brought into foster care.[10] A year later, in March 2008, Glass followed up with Hidden.[16]

Glass's third book, Cut, released in February 2009, told the story of Dawn, the second child Glass fostered.[17]

The Saddest Girl in the World was released in October 2009, and like the three previous books, told the real life story of one of Glass's foster children. The book centres on Donna, a 10-year-old who was seriously, physically and mentally abused by her alcoholic mother.[18]

Glass has described writing as a sort of therapy: “… certainly telling the children's stories helped me to come to terms with what the children had been through.”[19]

Glass's next book was a non-fiction parenting manual - Happy Kids, published in 2010.

In April 2010, the author released her first novel, The Girl in the Mirror. Based on a true story, the novel centres on Mandy, a woman in her 20s who sets out to rediscover her past after buried childhood memories start to surface.[1]

I Miss Mummy, released in July 2010, focusses on four-year-old Alice, who is placed into temporary care with Glass after being removed from her maternal grandparents, who are judged by social services to be too old to look after her. With her mum being mentally ill and drug dependant, Alice is set to live with her father and his new wife, but the grandparents are distraught as their granddaughter has never known her father, and her grandparents claim he is a violent drug dealer.[20]

Mummy Told Me Not to Tell, released in October 2010, is about a boy, "Reece", who has genetic disabilities and sufferes maltreatment in a dysfunctional and educationally subnormal family with a horrifying secret.[21]

My Dad's a Policeman, released February 2011, is Glass's second novel and first quick read title. It is about a bullied child whose single mother is unable to care for him due to her alcoholism and who had never known his father. Lonely and desperate for a life of happiness, he lies to the school bullies that his father is a policeman in the hope of making them go away.[22]

The Night the Angels Came, released September 2011, centres on Cathy's experiences of fostering eight-year-old Michael, whose loving widower father is dying and has no choice but to put him into care because he is no longer able to look after him.[23]

Happy Adults, released in January 2012, is a self-help guide to living a contented life. It is Glass's first work not specifically dealing with children and is a follow-up to "Happy Kids".[24]

Glass's next true-life story was A Baby's Cry, released in March 2012. It revolves around an unusual request by social services for her to foster a newborn child under strict secrecy and with little information provided. Only a few people are aware of the baby's very existence, as if his whereabouts became known his life, and that of his parents, could be in danger.[25]

Her latest fostering memoir, Another Forgotten Child, was published in September 2012. It highlights the true story of one young abuse victim.[2]

Popularity and critical appraisal

Glass's first book Damaged was a number 1 Sunday Times bestseller, both in hardback[3] and paperback.[4] As of January 2012 her books have sold over 1.3 million copies.[26] Cathy's books are also available in large print and have been translated into Danish, Norwegian, Polish, Portuguese, Russian and Swedish.

As her books deals with harrowing subjects, Glass has been placed by some critics within the misery literature genre.[27] In a 2007 article on Misery Lit, Daily Telegraph writer Ed West cited Glass's Damaged as being among “the most disturbing recent examples of the genre.”.[28] Despite the assessment of Misery Lit by Peter Saxton, biography buyer for Waterstone's, that books in the genre appeal to readers because "Misery, in whatever form, sells, and probably always will.", it has been noted by Guardian journalist Esther Addley that Glass's work offers "a certain amount of hope".[27] In an interview with the Daily Mail in February 2009, Glass said that she had received "thousands" of letters and emails from readers who had either related to her novel or had been inspired to foster children themselves.[10]

References

  1. ^ a b "The Girl in the Mirror : Cathy Glass". HarperCollins. Retrieved 2010-06-16.
  2. ^ a b Martin Robinson (2012-09-27). "'ABUSE COULD BE WIDESPREAD ACROSS UK' - SAYS FOSTER EXPERT". London: Dailymail.co.uk. Retrieved 2012-09-28.
  3. ^ a b "General hardbacks". The Times. London. 2007-02-25.
  4. ^ a b "Paperbacks general". The Times. London. 2007-08-26.
  5. ^ a b "Cathy Glass". HarperCollins. Retrieved 2010-06-16.
  6. ^ "Top 10 paperbacks: non-fiction; The Sunday Times". London: timesonline.co.uk. 2009-05-03. Retrieved 2011-02-27.
  7. ^ "Top 10 non-fiction hardbacks - August 17, 2008; The Sunday Times". London: timesonline.co.uk. 2008-08-17. Retrieved 2011-02-27.
  8. ^ a b "Harry Potter creator J K Rowling sparks 'novel boom' amid new mothers | Mail Online". London: Dailymail.co.uk. 2010-05-21. Retrieved 2010-06-16.
  9. ^ "Glass reflects new territory". theBookseller.com. Retrieved 2010-06-16.
  10. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k Kate Hilpern (2009-02-27). "Meet the mother who has fostered fifty children | Mail Online". London: Dailymail.co.uk. Retrieved 2010-06-16.
  11. ^ Hilpern, Kate (2010-05-20). "Fostering: Adults of all ages have something to offer children in their care - Healthy Living, Health & Families". London: The Independent. Retrieved 2010-06-16.
  12. ^ "Happy Kids : Cathy Glass". HarperCollins. 2010-01-07. Retrieved 2010-06-16.
  13. ^ "BBC - Discipline tips from Gloucestershire author Cathy Glass". BBC News. 2010-03-01. Retrieved 2010-06-16.
  14. ^ "Andrew Lownie Literary Agency :: Authors :: Cathy Glass". Andrewlownie.co.uk. Retrieved 2010-06-16.
  15. ^ Janet Snell. "Cathy Glass: author of Hidden talks about children's services - 05/09/2007". Community Care. Retrieved 2010-06-16.
  16. ^ "Hidden : Cathy Glass". HarperCollins. Retrieved 2010-06-16.
  17. ^ "Cut : Cathy Glass". HarperCollins. 2009-02-05. Retrieved 2010-06-16.
  18. ^ "The Saddest Girl in the World : Cathy Glass". HarperCollins. Retrieved 2010-06-16.
  19. ^ "About Cathy Glass". Cathyglass.co.uk. Retrieved 2010-06-16.
  20. ^ "I Miss Mummy : Cathy Glass". HarperCollins. Retrieved 2012-03-28.
  21. ^ "Mummy Told Me Not to Tell : Cathy Glass". HarperCollins. Retrieved 2012-03-28.
  22. ^ "My Dad's a Policeman : Cathy Glass". HarperCollins. Retrieved 2012-03-28.
  23. ^ "The Night the Angels Came : Cathy Glass". HarperCollins. Retrieved 2012-03-28.
  24. ^ "Happy Adults : Cathy Glass". HarperCollins. Retrieved 2012-03-28.
  25. ^ "A Baby's Cry : Cathy Glass". HarperCollins. Retrieved 2012-03-28.
  26. ^ "One million physical book sales for Cathy Glass". HarperCollins. Retrieved 2012-03-28.
  27. ^ a b Esther Addley (2007-06-15). "Esther Addley on the rise of 'misery lit' | Society". London: The Guardian. Retrieved 2010-06-16.
  28. ^ "Mis lit: Is this the end for the misery memoir?". London: Telegraph. 2008-03-05. Retrieved 2010-06-16.

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