Heather Mallick, a columnist for the Toronto Star, grew up in small towns in northern Canada and now lives in Toronto. She has an M.A. in English Literature from the University of Toronto, concentrating (very hard) on Virginia Woolf, and has worked as a reporter, copy editor and book review editor at various print newspapers. She wrote a column called As If in the Globe and Mail for several years, as well as a political column for the New York Times Syndication Service. She wrote columns for CBC.ca for a number of years and she writes an occasional column for The Guardian's Comment is Free section. Her first book, Pearls in Vinegar, was a modern version of the tenth-century Japanese pillow-book diary of Shei Shonagon. It was published by Penguin in 2004. Her second book, Cake or Death, a collection of original essays about finding consolations for living through the Bush era, was published by Knopf in 2007.  Heather also writes for the "Comment is Free" section of the Guardian Online.

She is passionate about Canadian nationalism and human rights. She reads full-time, mainly biography and history, her areas of specialty being post-war Britain, the Nixon era and the literature of the 1920s-30s, covering Mitfordiana and the Bloomsbury Group. Interests: Gardening, art history (which includes photography), architecture, patisserie. Marital status: Yes, very much so, with two stepdaughters.