About Patricia

Patricia Pearson is a novelist and journalist who has won two National Magazine Awards, a National Author's Award, and the Arthur Ellis Award for best non-fiction crime of 1997.

She was also a 2003 finalist for the Leacock Memorial Medal for Humour for her best-selling comic novel, Playing House, which was later adapted for television. This has little to do with the fact that Pearson's serious commentary appears regularly in the Toronto Star, the CBC and in USA Today, with more occasional sitings in the New York Times, the Guardian, and the Times of London, among numerous other publications.

Patricia Pearson apologizes for being eclectic.

A friend recently gave Patricia Pearson a fridge magnet that says "I always wanted to be somebody, but now I realize that I should have been more specific." Pearson finds this fitting, in that she hasn't ever managed to be terribly high concept in how her career has played out, and has found this a draw back in pitching her work.

Her writing has been anthologized in a confusing array of publications, from the Penguin Anthology of Canadian Humour, to the feminist essay collection Dropped Threads: Beyond the Small Circle, to The Art of Writing, 6th Edition, and To Arrive Where You Are, published by The Banff Centre Press.

Patricia Pearson once had a letter published in the New Yorker, which was very exciting. And another time, Camille Paglia called her a "stupid bitch." According to witnesses, Patricia Pearson was chewing gum and wearing a glamourous hat, which may inadvertently have come across as impudent.

Liam Neeson once bought Patricia Pearson a drink, to thank her for vacating the last available table in a bar.

Justin Trudeau talked to her at a party, but she was drunk and cannot remember what he said.

She met the Queen when she was little, because her grandfather was former Canadian Prime Minister Lester B. Pearson (that's him on the left with JFK). Her grandmother Maryon fondly quoted Dorothy Parker’s quip, "behind every successful man stands a surprised woman," to which her granddaughter now adds: "behind every successful woman stands a man who is knee-deep in dishes."