About — Patricia J Henderson

About Patricia

Okay, so I really did sit by the side of a dusty farm road with a table, one cup and three handwritten copies of my first newspaper. My Dad bought all three for a nickel each!

I had my first Letter to the Editor published in Chatelaine magazine when I was thirteen. And I always wrote angst-filled diaries and outrageous short stories. (Yes, I still have them!)

I accepted a scholarship to attend Queen’s University in Kingston where I studied English and Theatre, and after graduation, went on to study at The National Theatre School of Canada. I spent over a decade working nationally as a professional stage manager, eventually receiving a Tyrone Guthrie Award from the Stratford Festival. During that time, I co-wrote the children’s play Beyond the End of Your Nose and stage managed its first production. I then wrote two stage adaptations of the King Arthur stories for children.

Radio was a big part of my life while growing up in the country, so I decided to go back to school as a ‘mature’ student for a year of radio broadcasting in Ryerson University’s Radio and TV Arts program. That resulted in work both as an on-air DJ in private stations, followed by life-altering years with CBC radio in Calgary, where I also took courses in TV and video production at S.A.I.T. I have always been drawn to water though, and my gypsy feet took me to Vancouver where I found a home and a delicious job with CBC Radio Vancouver.

I had always been a bit of a sports nut, but on the west coast I blossomed. I hiked, danced, kayaked, canoed, and cycled. I became quite good at half marathons, which I did for years, rock-climbed with Outward Bound and even took nine months off to cycle around the South Pacific, falling in love with Australia and New Zealand along the way.

Eventually, I became a mother to a most wonderful baby girl. Yearning to get back east to family, I moved to Ontario and created my own writing company – Writing By Design. For decades I wrote copy for newspapers, magazines, websites, corporations, universities and municipalities. Clients included The Toronto Star, Kingston Life magazine, Backpack magazine, and the Canadian government.

One day, in 2003, I dusted off my dreams of writing fiction again, and wrote the first chapter of my first novel, at the Iowa Summer Writing Festival. But life, illness, divorce, running a company and single motherhood distracted me, and the chapter was slipped into a drawer. Then, once my baby had grown, and set her sights on the stage, I headed to northern Alberta for a stint as a Press Secretary.

Upon my return home, my first non-fiction book, Inside Kingston, was published by Quarry Press. Soon after, I was invited to workshop my first picture book, Moon of Mine, (illustrated by Maggie Gao) at the Banff Centre’s Writing in Style program. It was picked up for publication, but unfortunately, as can happen in the industry, the publisher went under.

But as luck, or fate, would have it, a year later I was suddenly laid up with a severely broken shoulder. That was when I finally opened the drawer again and dusted off my dreams for a second time. The novel was born.

With my first novel under my belt, I have started the research for a second. There is no more dusting off, no more dark drawers. And I remain, as always, an avid hiker and walker, and have even been known to try my hand at hip hop when no one is looking.