Kate Cayley

Kate Cayley is a Canadian writer and theatre director. She was the artistic director of Stranger Theatre and was playwright-in-residence at Toronto's Tarragon Theatre from 2009 to 2017.

As a playwright, her plays have included The Yellow Wallpaper Project, The Hanging of Françoise Laurent, The Clown of God, And What Alice Found There, The Counterfeit Marquise, and The Bakelite Masterpiece. and the Trillium Book Award in 2015 for her short story collection How You Were Born. In 2021, she won the Mitchell Prize for Faith and Poetry.

She was shortlisted for a ReLit Award in 2014 for her poetry collection How This World Comes to an End, and for the Governor General's Award for English-language fiction at the 2015 Governor General's Awards for How You Were Born.

Her debut novel, Property, was shortlisted for the 2026 Amazon Canada First Novel Award.

Works

Plays The Yellow Wallpaper Project (adapted from "The Yellow Wallpaper" by Charlotte Perkins Gilman) The Clown of God The Counterfeit Marquise (adapted from "The Counterfeit Marquise" by Charles Perrault) The World Turned Upside Down (adapted from the writings of Gerrard Winstanley and The World Turned Upside Down by Christopher Hill) The Hanging of Françoise Laurent (based on "Marrying the Hangman" by Margaret Atwood) After Akhmatova This is Nowhere The Archive of Missing Things

Poetry Other Houses (Brick Books 2017; OCLC ) When This World Comes to an End (Brick Books 2013; OCLC )

Short stories Householders (Biblioasis 2021; OCLC ) How You Were Born (Pedlar Press 2014; OCLC )

Novels The Hangman in the Mirror (Annick Press 2011; OCLC ) Property (Coach House Books 2025; OCLC )