Sherri Vanderveen was born in Hamilton, Ontario. Her short works of fiction have appeared in several Canadian literary journals. She currently lives in Toronto with her husband and two small children.

Absent (2009, Penguin Canada)
What happens when a father disappears? How are the empty spaces of an absence filled?
In 1979, Otto Sinclair flees in the wake of a tragic fire, leaving his family to sort through the ashes. Twenty-eight years later, he comes back to them: his wife Lenore, a kept woman in mourning with a box of memories in the trunk of her car; his daughter Ruby, who peoples her world with the imaginary and the unattainable; his son Gavin, confined in a prison of his own creation; and the ghost of his mother, dead on the third floor of the house he burned down.
A single act of desperation can echo for decades. Now, a wounded family struggles to answer one final question: is it possible to forgive when it's impossible to forget?

"A moving, heart-changing journey through memories and family secrets, This is a tale you won't soon forget." - Ami McKay, author of 'The Birth House'

Belle Falls (2007, Penguin Canada)
Sherri Vanderveen’s compelling debut novel is the first-person account of Belle Dearing, accused of molesting a little boy who lives across the street in her quiet suburban neighbourhood. Belle is a character familiar to many of us: the local crazy lady, the dishevelled woman whose house has fallen into disrepair, who strikes fear in local children and disgust among her neighbours. But within the crazy lady is a life derailed, unmoored. Who is Belle Dearing? And what has made her the way she is?
Belle Falls poses these questions and, as the story unfolds, answers them deeply and indelibly. From a Newfoundland childhood tragically cut short to her present-day troubles, Belle’s life has been anything but ordinary. But through it all—the heartbreak, the bad choices—stands an indomitable and irrepressible spirit you’ll not soon forget.