Patricia Pearson, born in Mexico City and raised in Ottawa, New Delhi and Vancouver, is an award-winning journalist and novelist whose probing books have earned her a reputation internationally for upending conventional wisdom. Her work has appeared in The New Yorker, the New York Times, USA Today, and on NPR, CNN and BBC, among many other media outlets, and her books have been translated into multiple languages.
Her first work of non-fiction, When She Was Bad, which won the Arthur Ellis Award for best nonfiction crime of 1997, is an exploration of the methods and motives of female violence, and is being republished in January, 2021, with a new chapter on serial killers in healthcare settings.
A Brief History of Anxiety…Yours and Mine, which the New York Times assigned “major points for wit and flair” was adapted for television and won the Rocky Award for Best Social Issues Documentary at the Banff International Television Festival.
Her book, Opening Heaven’s Door: What the Dying May be Trying to Tell Us About Where They’re Going, was a finalist for the B.C. National Book Award, was excerpted in the Daily Beast, has been published in twelve countries, and was the basis of a CBC Radio “Ideas” documentary. She also directed the research for the 2009 History Channel documentary, “The Science of the Soul.”
Her TEDx talk, at the University of Arizona, was titled “Why Ghosts are Good for You,” pointing to the research that shows how important experiences with unexplained phenomena can be in helping people cope with their grief.
Pearson is also a professionally certified Integral Coach, working with clients to deepen their understanding of what drives them, to reframe narratives around grief, and to find voice and clarity in writing.
She has a B.A. in history from the University of Toronto, and an MSc. in journalism from Columbia University. She pursued her PhD at the University of Chicago before switching into journalism in New York. She has also done graduate-level courses in the History of Psychiatry, and has been a guest lecturer at U. of T., Trinity College Dublin, Western, the University of Alberta and Ryerson.
She is the co-founder of www.bellwoodspress.com