Background

Patricia Pearson was born on the 7th of April, 1964 in Mexico City, Mexico; the daughter of Geoffrey Pearson and Landon Pearson.

Education

As a child, Patricia Pearson studied at Netherwood School in Rothesay, New Brunswick. She then attended Trinity College in Toronto, the University of Chicago, and Columbia School of Journalism in New York.

Career

Patricia Pearson began her career as a journalist in New York and Toronto, Ontario, Canada. In New York City she worked as a crime reporter before returning to Canada to write a column for the National Post. She also directed the research for the 2009 History Channel documentary “The Science of the Soul”.

Pearson’s experience as a crime journalist resulted in her first book “When She Was Bad: Violent Women and the Myth of Innocence” that was published in 1998. She also wrote “Playing House” in 2003, “Believe Me” and “Area Woman Blows Gasket” in 2005, “A Brief History of Anxiety - Yours and Mine” in 2008, “Opening Heaven's Door: What the Dying May Be Trying to Tell Us About Where They're Going” in 2014. Her and Riam Shammaa’s book “Looks Can Kill” will be published in 2020.

Patricia has been a contributor to books, including “The Art of Writing”, and “To Arrive Where You Are”, a contributor to periodicals, including USA Today, New York Times, Guardian, London Times, New York Observer, Redbook, Nerve, Shift, Chatelaine, Saturday Night, and Spy, and a columnist for National Post.

Achievements

• During her writing career, Patricia Pearson received numerous awards, among them is the National Magazine Award, National Author's Award, and Arthur Ellis Award. She was a finalist of Stephen Leacock Memorial Medal for Humour in 2004.
  
  Patricia Pearson’s works have appeared in The New Yorker, the New York Times, Huffington Post and Businessweek. Her book “Opening Heaven’s Door: What the Dying May Be Trying to Tell Us About Where They’re Going” has been published in Canada and the United States, with foreign language editions to come.

Works

More photos

• book

  • Opening Heaven's Door: What the Dying May Be Trying to Tell Us About Where They're Going

    (Sparked by extraordinary experiences that occurred when h...)

    2014
  • A Brief History of Anxiety (Yours & Mine)

    (The millions of North Americans who silently cope with an...)

    2008
  • Area Woman Blows Gasket

    (In Area Woman Blows Gasket, Pearson plumbs every facet of...)

    2005
  • Believe Me

    (How curious can a five-year-old really be? Frannie and Ca...)

    2005
  • Playing House

    (In Playing House, Patricia Pearson has written a witty, h...)

    2003
  • When She Was Bad: Violent Women and the Myth of Innocence 1998

Membership

Patricia Pearson was a long-time member of USA Today’s Op-Ed Board of Contributors.

Connections

Patricia Pearson is married and has two children.

Father:

Geoffrey Arthur Holland Pearson

Geoffrey Arthur Holland Pearson was a Canadian diplomat, author, and politician who was born on the 24th of December in 1927 and died on the 18th of March in 2008. He was educated at the University of Toronto, and the University of Oxford. He was Canada's ambassador to the Soviet Union in 1980-83 and was also Ambassador to Mongolia in 1980-81.

Mother:

Landon Pearson

The Honourable Landon Pearson O.C. is a long-time advocate for the rights and well-being of children. From 1994 to 2005, Landon Pearson served in the Senate of Canada, where she became known as the Children's Senator. She served in several influential roles in international affairs, including as the Personal Representative of the Prime Minister to the United Nations Special Session on Children. She then coordinated Canada's National Plan of Action entitled A Canada Fit for Children.

Grandfather:

Lester Bowles "Mike" Pearson

For four decades Lester Bowles Pearson has been noted for his diplomatic sensitivity, his political acumen, and his personal popularity. He is affectionately called «Mike», a nickname given to him by his flying instructor in World War I, who discarded «Lester» as being insufficiently bellicose. He received a balanced education in politics, learning the conservative position from his father, a Methodist minister, and the liberal from his mother. Pearson entered Victoria College at the University of Toronto in 1913 at the age of sixteen. Too young to enlist as a private when Canada declared war in 1914, he volunteered to serve with a hospital unit sponsored by the University. He spent two years as a stretcher-bearer in England, Greece, and Egypt. He then transferred to the Royal Flying Corps and began his training. Two months later he was hit by a bus and sent back to Canada after he was declared unit for flying. Pearson went on to be the leader of the Liberal party and the 14th prime minister of Canada. In 1957, he received the Nobel Peace Prize for his work diffusion the Suez Crisis. Born in Toronto, he died in Ottawa on December 27, 1972.

grandmother:

Maryon Elspeth Pearson