Press kit

A close-up of me, standing in front of a beige background. I am a white woman with short silver hair cropped closely on the sides. I am wearing dark teal metallic rimmed glasses with rhinestones on the side. I have blue-green eyes, coral lipstick, and I’m wearing silver hook earrings with black and electric blue beads. My shirt is plaid with black and electric blue.

Cait Gordon (she/her)

Canadian speculative fiction author who advocates for disability, mental health, and neurodiversity representation in written works.

(Please note: My first name is Irish, not English, and it’s pronounced like Kat.)

Contact info: authorcaitg (at) gmail .com (See also the Contact page.)

Bio—50 words

Cait Gordon is a Canadian autistic, disabled, and queer author of speculative fiction that celebrates diversity. She also co-edited Nothing Without Us, a 2020 Prix Aurora Award finalist, and Nothing Without Us Too (2022). In 2016, Cait founded the Spoonie Authors Network, a community initiative for writers who manage spoons.

Bio—110 words

Cait Gordon is an autistic, disabled, and queer Canadian writer of speculative fiction that celebrates diversity. She is the author of Life in the ’Cosm, The Stealth Lovers, and Season One: Iris and the Crew Tear Through Space! Her short stories appear in Alice Unbound: Beyond Wonderland, We Shall Be Monsters, Mighty: An Anthology of Disabled Superheroes, There’s No Place, and Stargazers: Microtales from the Cosmos. Cait also founded The Spoonie Authors Network and joined Talia C. Johnson to co-edit the Nothing Without Us and Nothing Without Us Too anthologies, whose authors and protagonists are disabled, d/Deaf, Blind or visually impaired, neurodivergent, Spoonie, and/or they manage mental illness. 

Bio-250 words

Cait Gordon is an autistic, disabled, and queer Canadian writer of speculative fiction that celebrates diversity. Originally from Verdun, Québec, Cait had worked for over two decades as a technical writer, then channelled her love for words into storytelling.

She is the author of Life in the ’Cosm, The Stealth Lovers, and Season One: Iris and the Crew Tear Through Space! Her short stories appear in Alice Unbound Beyond Wonderland, We Shall Be Monsters, Mighty: An Anthology of Disabled Superheroes, There’s No Place, and Stargazers: Microtales from the Cosmos. “The Hilltop Gathering” from We Shall Be Monsters stars a disabled monster and was discussed at Frankenstein-themed literary symposium at Carleton University.

In 2016, Cait founded The Spoonie Authors Network to connect with writers in the Disability community. Her desire to find better disabled and autistic representation in fiction prompted Cait to co-edit Nothing Without Us and Nothing Without Us Too with Talia C. Johnson. These multi-genre anthologies feature authors and protagonists who are disabled, d/Deaf, Blind, neurodivergent, Spoonie, and/or they manage mental illness. Nothing Without Us was taught in a disability studies course at Trent University and became a 2020 Prix Aurora Award finalist.

Even though her works include issues about identity and human/alien/monster rights, Cait has always felt humour is an important part of world-building. “Without humour, it doesn’t feel realistic.”

Cait is also a musician who lives in Ottawa with her guitarist husband, Canadian author Bruce D. Gordon. She’s friendly, feisty, and loves cake.

Headshots

A greyscale close-up of me, standing in front of a blank background. I am a white woman with short silver hair cropped closely on the sides. I am wearing dark metallic rimmed glasses with rhinestones on the side. I’m wearing silver hook earrings with flat beads and a plaid shirt.
A close-up of me, standing in front of a beige background. I am a white woman with short silver hair cropped closely on the sides. I am wearing dark teal metallic rimmed glasses with rhinestones on the side. I have blue-green eyes, coral lipstick, and I’m wearing silver hook earrings with black and electric blue beads. My shirt is plaid with black and electric blue.

Book cover images

Book cover: a watercolour of a brick wall in teal, brown, and beige bricks. Black graffiti says “Nothing without US.” And dark orange-red graffiti says “TOO.” Editors and author names are also on the cover.
Book cover: Graffiti wall with “Nothing Without Us” spray painted in black. The list of editors and authors is included in the text of this page.
Book cover: Two Draga warriors in space flight suits about to engage in a kiss while standing on a snowy mountain top. Overhead flies a space fighter.
Book cover: A multi-coloured nebula of purples, blues, and aquas. A ringed planet. A little alien, resembling a fried egg with huge eyes, nonchalantly hurtles through space.
Book cover description: Four crew members of the SS SpoonZ and a robot stand on a planetary surface. The image of them is superimposed over a sky with swirling stars that features a ship whose hull looks like it’s shaped from spoons. The crew members from the right are Lieutenant Iris, who’s holding her white cane with the red stripe and has her other hand on the head of her aqua guidebot, Clarence; Security Chief Leanna Lartha is aiming a grey tubular weapon at something while smirking. She has two leg prostheses and one is glowing; Commander Davan waves a blue arm at Iris. He has a prominent trunk, which he also uses to communicate in his own language; And Mr. Herbert, Chief of Engineering, has his back to us while pointing to the sky.
Anthologies and novels

Words of praise

Readers, get ready—for the gleekin’ ride of your life! Iris and the Crew Tear Through Space is an exuberant romp that ditches all the stale clichés of sci-fi in favour of what’s fresh, exciting, and truly possible. Here is a tale that shows when it comes to accessibility, not even the sky is the limit. Buckle up and enjoy!

Amanda Leduc, author of The Centaur’s Wife and Disfigured: On Fairy Tales, Disability, and Making Space

“I simply cannot tell you how much I enjoyed this! Best thing I’ve read all year.” 

Robert Kingett, co-editor of Artificial Divide [about Season One: Iris and the Crew Tear Through Space!]

“Space… the most accessible frontier. These interconnected, intergalactic stories imagine disability as a natural part of life, and accessibility as a necessity rather than an afterthought. No matter what your body can or can’t do, and no matter your species, Iris and the crew welcomes you aboard.”

Jennifer Lee Rossman, co-editor of Mighty: An Anthology of Disabled Superheroes [about Season One: Iris and the Crew Tear Through Space!]

“This is why books like Nothing Without Us Too are so important. Stories featuring disabled characters that are written by disabled authors themselves are inherently stories of transformation and the new—because they come from people who’ve had to view the world in different ways in order to get by, to survive, to thrive in ways that only we know how. Disabled authors don’t just ‘fix disability in their stories—they go about fixing, as it were, the entire world.” 

Amanda Leduc, author of Disfigured: On Fairy Tales, Disability, and Making Space, and The Centaur’s Wife (from the foreword in Nothing Without Us Too)

“The manifesto of plucky editors Cait Gordon and Talia C. Johnson for this anthology was to gather great short stories that not only centre the disabled experience (all main characters are disabled, Deaf, neurodiverse, spoonie, and/or managing mental illness or chronic conditions), but also buck the tired tropes that dominate disabled representation.”

CHERIE PYNE FOR THE MONTREAL REVIEW OF BOOKS: CENTERING DIFFERENCES

“I think this is an important and significant book. Certainly memorable. You won’t forget what you’ve read when you put it down. This anthology deserves an Aurora Award, in my opinion. It’s that good.”

R. GRAEME CAMERON FOR AMAZING STORIES: CLUBHOUSE: REVIEW: NOTHING WITHOUT US, A GENRE ANTHOLOGY ABOUT DISABILITY

“I’m a sucker for fiction, especially speculative and realistic fiction featuring stories where disabled people are the heroes of their own story. “Nothing Without Us” is a multi-genre, own-voices anthology where the lead characters identify as disabled, deaf, neurodiverse, spoonie, and/or managing mental illness. There’s something for everyone in these twenty-two stories that range the gamut from satirical to thrilling and suspenseful. The anthology has a vast contributor pool, which helps to spread out the many kinds of writing styles. The stories are evenly placed so you won’t get shocked because you’re suddenly jumping jarringly to a very different genre.”

ROBERT KINGETT FOR NEWCITY ZINE: FOUR DISABILITY ANTHOLOGIES THAT ARE ACTUALLY AUTHENTIC: A REVIEW OF “ABOUT US,” “FIRSTS,” “NOTHING WITHOUT US” AND “DEFYING DOOMSDAY”

“With My Kind,” her contribution to Stargazers very much embodies that goal. It’s a micro-escape story which, in 185 words, balances hope and tragedy, horror and comedy, action and love all the while echoing the themes that drive Gordon’s work: the too-often underestimated spark and spirit of disabled people, as well as a direct subversion of the tired trope that “restructuring” is needed for some to fit into an ableist view of “normal”.

AE SCIENCE FICTION ARTICLE ABOUT CAIT GORDON AND HER MICROFICTION ENTRY, WITH MY KIND

“Alice in Wonderland is a story that plays with identity, disrupting the power that normativity has on our society. Cait Gordon has tapped into that power that Wonderland has to resist normativity and creates a GenderQueer Alice who has just come out and taken on their new name and pronouns. It is refreshing to read a story featuring a GenderQueer character that is not about the struggles of occupying their identity.” 

DEREK NEWMAN-STILLE, FROM WONDERFUL, A REVIEW OF A NIGHT AT THE RABBIT HOLE IN SPECULATING CANADA

Awards/nominations

Nothing Without Us—a 2020 Prix Aurora Finalist for Best Related Work

Interviews—written

AE Science Fiction interviews Cait Gordon about With My Kind—October 10, 2020

As part of the Kickstarter campaign for AE Science Fiction’s new collection of microfiction called STARGAZERS: Microtales from the Cosmos, Cait was interviewed about her contribution, With My Kind, and about writing disabled characters.

SF Canada: Interview with Cait Gordon About Advocating for Disabled Writers—September 3, 2020

Nine time Prix Aurora Award winner Derek Newman-Stille interviews Cait about disability representation, being an advocate, and maybe also cosplaying Barbies.

Speculating Canada: Authors in Quarantine – Cait Gordon—May 7, 2020

Nine-time Prix Aurora Award winner Derek Newman-Stille asks Cait how she is managing while staying home during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Persephone Knits—May 25, 2019

Author and lovely human Julie Reeser interviews Cait about her author and advocacy life on PersephoneKnits.

The Art is Ours—August 16, 2017

Canadian Writers: Cait Gordon—by Kirsten McNeill on The Art is Ours.

Interviews—audio or televised

Spoonie Authors Podcast, Episode One: Exploring the Power of Disabled Authors with Cait Gordon—February 7, 2020

Canadian author Dianna Gunn, producer and director of the Spoonie Authors Podcast, interviews Cait about what it means to be a Spoonie and how disabled folks are represented in fiction and the media.

Rogers Daytime Ottawa—April 1, 2019

Dylan Black discusses the Nothing Without Us anthology and Kickstarter with Cait Gordon and Nathan Fréchette on Rogers Daytime Ottawa.

Live from Studio 5—March 29, 2019

Mike Ross and Joeita Gupta interview Cait Gordon and Talia C. Johnson about the Nothing Without Us anthology on Live from Studio 5 (March 29, 2019).

The Author’s Journey—February 12, 2018

Mony Dojeiji hosts Cait Gordon to discuss Life in the ’Cosm and The Spoonie Authors Network on The Author’s Journey (February 12, 2018)