Nonfiction
Mary Paterson is the author of The Monks and Me: How 40 Days in Thich Nhat Hanh's French Monastery Guided Me Home (Hampton Roads Publishing), named to Bookspan's One Spirit® Top 12 Books of 2012 and published in ten languages, from French and German to Chinese and Indonesian. Trained as a child at The National Ballet School, she spent two decades as a professional ballet dancer before producing benefit galas that brought together principal dancers from The National Ballet of Canada, author Michael Ondaatje, and singer-songwriter Jane Siberry in support of World Literacy and the cancer centre Wellspring. She has spent 22 years teaching yoga, meditation, and mindfulness, founding Toronto's Lotus Yoga Centre and building wellness programs for organizations such as Ernst & Young Global, TD Bank, and Princess Margaret Hospital, including a featured turn at Four Seasons Hotels and Resorts' first global virtual conference. A Queen's University graduate and dual citizen of Canada and the UK, she teaches creative writing at the University of Toronto.
Photograph by Cylla von Tiedemann.
The Monks and Me
