O'LEARY, Denyse 1950-

PERSONAL: Born March 31, 1950, in Regina, Saskatchewan, Canada; daughter of John Patrick (a chartered accountant) and Blanche Aurore (a registered nurse; maiden name, Roy) O'Leary; married Joseph Alexander Handler, August 29, 1970 (divorced, 1987); children: Sheila Bradfield, Cynthia. Ethnicity: "Irish-French." Education: Waterloo Lutheran University (now Wilfrid Laurier University),B.A. (English language and literature, with honors), 1971. Religion: Evangelical Anglican. Hobbies and other interests: Gardening.

ADDRESSES: Home and offıce—14 Latimer Ave., Toronto, Ontario, Canada M5N 2L8; fax: 416-485-9665. E-mail—[email protected].

CAREER: Freelance writer and editor, 1971—. Also teacher of adult night-school classes, 1996—.

MEMBER: Periodical Writers' Association of Canada, Editors' Association of Canada, Word Guild, Canadian Science Writers' Association, Canadian Association of Journalists, Canadian Society of Children's Authors, Illustrators, and Publishers, Garden Writers of America.

WRITINGS:

Faith@Science: Why Science Needs Faith in theTwenty-first Century (collected essays), J. Gordon Shillingford Publishing (Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada), 2001.

Author of "Faith and Science," a column in Christian Week. Contributor to periodicals, including Christianity Today, Faith Today, and Canadian Bookseller.

WORK IN PROGRESS: If Only Creatures Told Their Names, and Other Science Poems for Children, for Electric E (Powell River, British Columbia, Canada), completion expected in 2003; an overview of the "intelligent design" controversy, Castle Quay Books (Pickering, Ontario, Canada), 2003; research on renewal in parish-based churches.

SIDELIGHTS: Denyse O'Leary told CA: "Statements from the electricity company, the gas company, the mortgage bank, the credit card facility, the city property tax office, and the Canadian income tax agency provide me with my primary motivation to get down to work—I am a professional writer, not a bohemian. I don't get money from the government. If I did, I would probably talk more and write less.

"[As to what influences my work,] I get interested in things—automotive air bags, gardening in small spaces, the Intelligent Design controversy—and people say that I explain them clearly. They like my short, simple explanations because they do not have the time, energy, or education for long and complicated ones. The fact that I can help others appreciate the things I appreciate motivates me to write about them. I like to think that the reader, the writer, and the subject all benefit.

"I owe a lot to my teachers, in grade school through college. In those days (1955-1971), teachers were not big on self-esteem. They felt you had to earn the right to be proud of yourself. They made us work and study, so when they said 'Well done!' it meant something. It wasn't just shorthand for 'Maybe this therapy will work.' That was good for me. After all, I really could do the work—that is, if I quit giggling and passing notes with the girl in the next desk.

"I get up early in the morning, pray that I will make a good use of my day, recall the looming deadlines, turn on the word processor, and promptly go away and forget about it as long as possible. It is amazing how much time a person can spend on ordinary kitchen chores. The clock drives me back to the word processor. (Both clock and word processor are evil inventions that work in concert to reduce humanity to servitude, but that is another story.) Later, the mail is delivered, and I discover additional reasons to keep bashing the keys.

"I've always been interested in faith and science issues. Faith@Science: Why Science Needs Faith in the Twenty-first Century is a collection of my writings on faith and science issues since 1997, done at the behest of various Christian publications after the cloning of Dolly the sheep in 1996. The reason this material was published as a book is that a publisher for whom I wrote indexes (Gord Shillingford) saw some of my work and asked me to collect it all together and publish it. Shillingford primarily publishes plays, but he thought that the subjects raised were important.

"I've always told stories and recited poems to children, many of my own making. If Only Creatures Told Their Names, and Other Science Poems for Children reflects that interest."

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

periodicals

Report Newsmagazine, February 18, 2002, Kathy Shaidle, "Border Points between Faith and Science: A Christian Wonders If Morality Can Be Rediscovered before Biotechnology Enslaves Us All."