About.
Bio
Katarina Gligorijevic (she/they) is a writer and film producer living in Toronto, Canada. Her writing has been published in The Antigonish Review, Taddle Creek Magazine, POV Magazine, and two Coach House Books anthologies, among other publications.
In 2022, one of her short stories was longlisted for the CBC Short Story Prize. They’re currently working on a debut novel, which has been supported by grants from the Toronto Arts Council and Canada Council for the Arts. When not writing, Katarina can be found identifying bugs in her backyard vegetable garden with her curious seven-year-old. And, of course, reading. Always reading!
Bio, but make it a story
When I was six years old, my family moved from Yugoslavia (where I was born), to Iraq (where I spent 3-4 of the happiest years of my childhood). I started grade one at the Baghdad International School and had to very quickly learn English.
English immediately became my storytelling language. As soon as I could manage it, I started writing stories. My first attempts were essentially fan fiction, featuring characters from my favourite book at the time (Enid Blyton’s The Magic Faraway Tree).
Eventually, I grew up, and developed a passion for film. I ended up setting writing aside to pursue a career in that industry. I started out as an intern at TVO, and worked for many years at REEL CANADA, where I was the Director of National Canadian Film Day from 2018 until 2023.
I have also worked (and continue to work) as a film producer, consultant and story editor at Ultra 8 Pictures, the production and consulting company I run with my partner, Colin Geddes.
Of course, I never stopped writing. Eventually, my stories became a bit more original. Over the years, I continued to work on fiction (privately) and non-fiction (publicly), publishing film reviews in print and online in places such as Exclaim! and Toronto Film Scene, and essays in publications like POV Magazine, The Cultural Gutter, and various others.
Fast forward to 2019. I couldn’t have known that the tumult of the pandemic that was lying in wait for us all, but somehow, my gut told me it was time for a change. After 15 years of working in the film industry, I started shifting my priorities back to my first love: writing fiction. Since then, I’ve published some short stories and started work on some longer ones, with the unwavering support of my family and the remarkable women in my writing groups. In the summer of 2023, I stepped down from my role as Director of CanFilmDay after shepherding the annual celebration through its massive tenth anniversary edition.
I’m currently on sabbatical, completing my debut novel and writing a newsletter about the process. The novel was generously supported by two grants, as well as a partner who does most of the household and parenting work in order to free me up to write.
Name pronunciation guide
Katarina is pronounced
Kat-A-rina.
A surprising number of strangers (about half) call me by a totally different name (Katrina) on their first try. I couldn’t come up with a clever, funny mnemonic so I’ll just give you this straightforward guide: My name has four syllables (like Katarina Witt, the German figure skater and Olympic gold medalist, if you’re old enough for that ’80s reference). It’s not Kat-rina, like the devastating hurricane of 2005.
Gligorijević is pronounced
glee-go-REE-ye-vich.
The emphasis is on the middle syllable. English speakers tend to want to put the stress on “go,” but that’s not where it “go”es. (Sorry.)
It seems tricky, but it’s simple if you understand that Serbian is a phonetic language, meaning that every letter can only make a single sound. As a result, all Serbian words only have one possible pronunciation, and Serbian kids don’t have to “learn spelling,” because everything is spelled exactly the way it sounds.
Of course, Serbian letters don’t all make the same sounds as they do in English. The one that trips everyone up is the J. Like in many other European languages, the J is (always!) pronounced like a Y.
Most people look at my last name and say “oh, I won’t even try.” I get it, but I appreciate immensely the 15% or so who do try. I also love meeting people from other complicated-last-name cultures and learning how to say their names correctly.