- Name: Caitlin (Katie) Barasch
- Grad year: 2015
- Major: English, Creative Writing Track
- Extracurricular activities while at CC: Fiction editor of The Leviathan; Equestrian team
- Current location: Brooklyn, NY
- Current occupation: Author, editor, and writing instructor
How did your time at CC guide your writing or prepare you for your career path?
During my time at CC, I took as many creative writing classes as possible – a cross-genre course with Idris Goodwin and Steve Hayward, Senior Seminar with Bryan Hurt, Beginning Fiction with Steve Hayward, an Asian-American Literature course with Madeleine Thien, and an Audio Essay course with Felicia Rose Chavez. Every single one of these courses allowed me to absorb and learn from each professor’s singular style of running a successful workshop and taught me how transformative a workshop experience could be in my evolution as a writer and as a person. In the sacred space the workshop provided, I could be truly vulnerable and trust my peers. As a result, I knew I wanted to continue taking – and teaching! – workshops, which led me to enroll in the MFA program at NYU.
What was the most important thing you learned as a Creative Writing major?
How to finish a first draft, no matter what. And how to best engage with my classmates’ work.
What is your fondest memory of your time at CC?
Every single writing class I took, and our Senior Fiction reading.
Fun Fact: Caitlin will be returning to CC as a visiting professor for Blocks 3 & 4 this year to teach the Senior Seminar Fiction Workshop!
What are you most looking forward to in returning to CC as a visiting professor?
I’m excited to read my students’ work and to foster the same kind of close-knit community I benefited from as a student.
The Book
- Title: A Novel Obsession
- Author: Caitlin Barasch ’15
- Genre: Psychological Thriller
- Published: March 2022
A Good Morning America Buzz Pick, and a BuzzFeed and New York Post “Best Book of 2022”.
Twenty-four-year-old New York bookseller Naomi Ackerman is desperate to write a novel, but struggles to find a story to tell. When, after countless disastrous dates, she meets Caleb – a perfectly nice guy with a Welsh accent and a unique patience for all her quirks – she thinks she’s finally stumbled onto a time-honored subject: love. Then Caleb’s ex-girlfriend, Rosemary, enters the scene.
Upon learning that Rosemary is not safely tucked away in Caleb’s homeland overseas, but in fact lives in New York and also works in the literary world, Naomi is threatened and intrigued in equal measure. If they both fell for the same man, what else might they have in common? The more Naomi learns about Rosemary, the more her curiosity consumes her. Before she knows it, her casual Instagram stalking morphs into a friendship under false pretenses – and becomes the subject of her nascent novel.
As her lies and half-truths spiral out of control, and fact and fiction become increasingly difficult to untangle, Naomi must decide what – and who – she’s willing to sacrifice to write the perfect ending.