Cathy Hayward

I'm Cathy Hayward. I'm a writer and bookseller based in Brighton, on the south coast of England.

I trained and worked as a journalist for many years before moving into the world of PR. In 2022, after having spent a lifetime pottering around bookshops, I bought Kemptown Bookshop in Brighton and I've worked to create a community which supports local authors and aspiring writers. In 2024, I took on the management of The Creative Writing Programme, the leading independent centre for creative writing teaching in the south-east of England, which is now based at the bookshop.

Devastated and inspired in equal measure by the death of my parents in quick succession in 2016, I completed the two-year Creative Writing Programme course out of which emerged my debut novel THE GIRL IN THE MAZE about the experience of mothering and being mothered. It won Agora Books’ Lost the Plot Work in Progress Prize 2020 and was longlisted for the Grindstone Literary Prize 2020 and Flash500 2020. It was published by Agora in November 2021.

I was then fortunate to be sign a three-book deal with Lake Union. My second novel THE SECRET OF THE BRIGHTON HOUSE comes out on 1st November 2024 and, on the same day, a revised version of my debut novel, now called THE GIRL IN THE MIDNIGHT MAZE is published. I'm currently working on my third novel.

When I'm not writing (or reading), I love pottering in other people’s bookshops, going to the theatre and drinking wine. I live in Brighton, England – sandwiched between the Downs and the sea – with my three children and two rescue cats.

Please do get in touch and ask me a question. I read (and respond) to all my reviews and love chatting to readers.

You can connect with me on Twitter @cathyhayward7 on Instagram @cathy_hayward_writer and on Facebook @cathy-hayward-author