Catherine Lang considers herself lucky to have studied under Jack Hodgins, Jerri Lee, Constance Rooke and Hetty Clews at the University of Victoria in the 1980s. In 1988 she won the Penny Wise Journalism Scholarship to attend the journalism program at Langara College, after which she moved on to community newspaper reporting and freelance writing.  These endeavours led to the publication of O'Bon in Chimunesu in 1996. A creative non-fiction work about the former Japanese-Canadian community in Chemainus, BC., it won the Hubert Evans Nonfiction Award in 1997. Following a stint in the treaty negotiation biz for the provincial government in Victoria for 14 years, Catherine semi-retired to work as an editor of legislative debates, a seasonal job that allowed her more time to write. The mother of two grown children, she's writing a memoir about her niece, Michelle Lang, the Calgary Herald journalist killed in Afghanistan in December 2009.