Sheila Heti works as Interviews Editor at The Believer, and has contributed long interviews with writers and artists to the magazine.
She is the author of five books: the story collection, The Middle Stories (McSweeney’s Books); the novella, Ticknor (Farrar, Straus and Giroux); How Should a Person Be? (Henry Holt); and an illustrated book for children, We Need a Horse (McSweeney's McMullins) featuring art by Clare Rojas. With Misha Glouberman, she wrote a book of "conversational philosophy" called The Chairs Are Where the People Go (Faber), which The New Yorker chose as one of its Best Books of 2011.
Her work has been translated into German, French, Spanish, Dutch, Italian, Vietnamese and Serbian. Her writing has appeared in The New York Times, n+1, McSweeney’s, Brick, Geist, Maisonneuve, Triple Canopy, Bookforum, and other places.
In 2001, she created the Trampoline Hall lecture series, at which people deliver lectures on subjects outside their areas of expertise. The shows have been running monthly in Toronto since that time and have sold out every show since their inception.
In 2008, she created The Metaphysical Poll, a blog that collected the sleeping dreams people were having about Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama during the Democratic primaries. The blog received hundreds of dreams and press in The Washington Post, The LA Times, New York Magazine, Slate, The New Yorker, The Economist, The Huffington Post and elsewhere.
She appeared in photographs as Lenore Doolan in Leanne Shapton’s book-as-auction catalogue, Important Artifacts and Personal Property from the Collection of Lenore Doolan and Harold Morris, including Books, Street Fashion and Jewelry.
She appears in Margaux Williamson’s film Teenager Hamlet, and with her runs The Production Front, which puts on shows and promotes the work of other artists.
She is working on an adaptation of the I Ching, a novel about love and consciousness, a book about our relationship to objects, and a book-length interview with a certain psychoanalyst.
She studied playwriting at the National Theatre School in Montreal before attending the University of Toronto to study art history and philosophy. She lives in Toronto.