Sharp (Dean) - Author Bio

Author Bio
• Birth—ca. 1978 (?)
• Raised—Ottawa, Ontario, Canada
• Education—B.A., University of Toronto; L.L.M, McGill University
• Awards—National Book Critics Circle Citation for Reviewing
• Currently—lives in Los Angeles, California, USA


Michelle Dean is a Canadian author, journalist, and former lawyer who now lives in Los Angeles, California. The child of parents born in Quebec, she grew up in the suburbs of Ottawa. She earned her B.A. from Toronto University and, in 2005, a law degree from McGill University.

After law school Dean left Canada for New York City where she spent five years working as an attorney in a large corporate law firm. In 2010, not particularly happy with the law (and laid off), Dean returned to Canada, settling in Toronto to pursue freelance journalism. Shortly after, however, she returned to New York to continue her writing career, then on to Los Angeles, California.

A contributing editor at the New Republic, she has written for The New Yorker, Nation, New York Times Magazine, Slate, New York Magazine, Elle, Harper’s, and BuzzFeed. In 2016 she received the National Book Critics Circle’s 2016 Nona Balakian Citation for Excellence in Reviewing.

Her book Sharp: The Women Who Made an Art of Opinion was released to favorable reviews in 2018. (Adapted from various online sources.)