Growing up in Owen Sound, Paul Vasey endured a couple of stints at boarding school when he was nine, and again when he was fifteen: "My overwhelming feeling, especially at nine but also at fifteen, was of being betrayed; of being sent from a warm place to a cold one; of being sent away into the care of people who were only paid to care. A very lonely feeling." While he says he has never experienced the abuse suffered by many boarding-school boys, he did witness many scenes of cruelty and violence â” scenes that ultimately stirred his memories and fed this novel.
Eventually Paul got a job at the local daily, The Owen Sound Sun-Times, and from there went on to a stellar career in journalism â” print, television and radio. He has worked with The Windsor Star, Canadian Press, The Hamilton Spectator and the CBC (where he spent sixteen years as host of the morning show in Windsor, and two years hosting the morning show in Victoria, B.C.), and he has been awarded a Southam Fellowship for Journalists. He is the author of five novels for adults, as well as the nonfiction title, Kids in the Jail: Why Our Young Offenders Do the Things They Do (described by the Calgary Herald as "the most accurate and provocative demonstration yet of one of the most contentious issues of the decade"). As the board member of a mental-health treatment center for children and adolescents, he has seen how devastating abuse is for its victims, and how long-lasting its effects.
Paul lives in Windsor with his wife, Marilyn.
