Artist, author and nurse .

Hello, I'm so pleased to meet you. I'm Catherine Short — artist, author and nurse. For my day job I'm an advanced nurse practitioner working part-time in general practice. Nursing keeps me sane, writing feeds my soul, and creating art fills me with peace and joy.

I began writing over twenty years ago. Two health books were published in 2010 and 2011, both due to be updated and republished next year. I've also had short stories, features and articles in Pick Me Up, The Weekly News and Yours, and two of my short plays were shortlisted and performed at Swanwick Writers' School. In 2014 my writing led me to become a regular newspaper reviewer on Alan Beswick's BBC Manchester Radio and a guest on BBC Five Live.

I launched my debut novel, Finding Redemption, in the summer of 2025 — a project I began back in 2006 and finally completed. I'm now working on my next novel, The Christmas Visitor, hoping to publish in autumn 2027.

Although I hadn't created any art since leaving school, I began experimenting very early in Lockdown and quickly became addicted. I started with pet portraits in pastel, then moved to coloured pencil — a head-and-neck portrait on A4 typically takes me 25–30 hours. For human portraits I paint in watercolour, in a looser style. There is nothing more wonderful than watching a client unwrap their commission; that moment is priceless.

I was recently invited by Altrincham Society of Artists to teach photo-realistic pet portraiture, and in the summer of 2025 I was offered a place as a Wild Card on Sky Arts Landscape Artist of the Year, painting Derwent Water in the Lake District — a truly amazing day. My work has been exhibited in galleries across Greater Manchester and the city of York, and I regularly show at local cafés and at Dunham Massey Barn.

Have a wonderful day, Cath