Never Let a Good Disaster Go to Waste: Making Sense of a Life of Absurdity, A Memoir
Author: Kat Finnerty
September 2023

By Julie Kish

Former Mowat student Kat Finnerty has turned her life full of disasters and bad luck into an inspirational memoir. Never Let a Good Disaster Go to Waste: Making Sense of a Life of Absurdity is a fabulous page-turner that is difficult to put down.The author, who refers to herself as the “Master of Disaster,” uses her masterful writing style to tell the story of an exceptionally adventurous life full of devastatingly bad luck.  

Kat began her life in Scarborough, the eldest of five children, and her bad luck started early. At the age of six she began to suffer from horrific migraines, which would plague her until she was 18,  and on her 12th birthday, she lost her mother to cancer. These early life challenges initially left Kat feeling lost but it fueled her adventurous spirit and her search for purpose.

After a short time in the Canadian Armed Forces as a medic and a string of abandoned careers, Kat decided to leave the Toronto area and travel. Although she was plagued with accidents and injuries while travelling in Bali, Australia and Europe, Kat was living her best life until she began to have inexplicable symptoms that threatened to cripple her.

Eventually, she was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis, an incurable auto-immune disease. Kat took on this disease the same way she faced everything. She pursued every treatment, including the experimental ones, and refused to see herself as a victim. There were times when she temporarily lost the use of an arm or a leg but she never stopped fighting.

As a way to cope, Kat studied and practiced Buddhist principles and she believes incorporating these principles into her life led to the remission of her MS. She never stops pushing herself, and to celebrate the 25th anniversary of her diagnosis she climbed two live volcanoes. 

She includes a simple description of these life principles in her memoir so others can benefit from the practices. The author’s enthusiasm for life and her dedication to helping others is evident throughout her book.

Kat has been featured on BT Canada (Breakfast TV) and the interview is available on her website (www.katfinnerty.com). In addition to being an author, Kat is a yoga and fitness instructor, a nutritionist, and a wellness retreat coordinator. She divides her time between Australia and Vanuatu, an island nation 1,800 kilometres east of Australia. She continues to visit her father’s home in Scarborough regularly.

Never Let a Good Disaster Go to Waste is available at Indigo and on Amazon.