Dearing, Sarah

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DEARING, Sarah

PERSONAL:

Born in London, Ontario, Canada; daughter of Peter (a theater instructor and actor). Education: Attended Ryerson Polytechnic University (journalism).

ADDRESSES:

Home—Toronto, Ontario, Canada. Office—Writers Guild of Canada, 366 Adelaide Street W., Suite 401, Toronto, Ontario M5V 1R9, Canada. E-mail—s.dearing@wgc.ca.

CAREER:

Author and communications specialist. Writers Guild of Canada, Toronto, Ontario, Canada, agreement administrator.

AWARDS, HONORS:

City of Toronto Book Award, 2002, for Courage My Love.

WRITINGS:

The Bull Is Not Killed (novel), Stoddart (New York, NY), 1998.

Courage My Love (novel), Stoddart (Niagara Falls, NY), 2001.

Contributor to such periodicals as National Post and Queen Street Quarterly.

WORK IN PROGRESS:

Researching a story based on the life of her father, who, as a child, was sold into indentured servitude to an influential sculptor.

SIDELIGHTS:

Born in London, Ontario, Canada, author Sarah Dearing attended journalism school, but decided she did not possess the proper instincts for the genre, preferring fiction. To pay the bills, she took a position in the film division of the Writers Guild of Canada, writing fiction in her free time. In 1981 she moved to Toronto's diverse, artsy Kensington Market area. In an interview with Susan G. Cole for NOWToronto.com, Dearing remarked of the neighborhood, "this is the first place I ever came to where I could do whatever I wanted."

A sense of place is a vital part of Dearing's work. For her first novel, The Bull Is Not Killed, she traveled to Portugal for a year to do research. The book tells of a recent university graduate, Luis, and a gypsy girl, Luisa, who meet in a chance encounter at the seaside. Their romance, which includes Luis's search to find Luisa again, and her rejection of an arranged marriage in order to be with him, plays out against the backdrop of Portugal's 1974 Revolution, an insurrection notable for its minimal violence. A contributor for the Manuel Carvalho Web site called Dearing's novel "a triumph of art and imagination." Nancy Schiefer, writing for the London Free Press, dubbed it "a stylish romp through the Portuguese countryside by characters bent on stirring up trouble." In a review for Quill and Quire, Mary Soderstrom commented that "the novel's title comes from the fact that the bull is not killed in Portuguese bullfights.… Its title is indicative of Dearing's admiration for the Portuguese who appear to have discovered how to make massive changes humanely."

Courage My Love, for which she won the Toronto Book Award in 2002, started as a short story Dearing wrote the first year she lived in Toronto. In it, she addresses a place closer to home: the Kensington Market area. The novel follows heroine Philippa Maria Donahue as, on a whim, she leaves her yuppie husband, Brendan, and their condo in Yorkville for a new life in Kensington Market. She changes her name to Nova Philip, acquires a cheap apartment and a bohemian wardrobe, and throws herself into her new world.

In NOW, Susan G. Cole wrote that "from the first paragraph describing Philippa's nausea at a whiff of shark's entrails, we're plunked into the environment with her, sensing everything as she takes a room over Asylum or socks a few beers back at Amadeau. The Yorkville scenes are a perfect foil for Kensington—manicured, over-developed, gentrified." The quirky plot was not as uniformly favored as the sense of atmosphere. Schiefer noted that "although Dearing is good with descriptive detail and her sketch of the Toronto Market scene is colourful and chaotic, her underlying message seems sophomoric." In an article poste on the Toronto Municipal Web site, John Farrell reflected the view of the Toronto Book Awards judging committee in calling Courage My Love "a moving and richly layered novel." He added that "Dearing helps us to see the streets, the people and places of Kensington … as if for the first time."