About Miriam
Miriam Verheyden was born in Germany during a snow storm, and has been fond of winter and snow ever since. She arrived two weeks early at 7am in the morning, and she blames both facts for being completely unable to ever sleep past 7, and for being one of those people for whom being on time means being late. She will get to the airport five hours before her flight just in case.
Miriam is a feminist and recovering people pleaser who has finally managed to swap her lifelong urge to be nice for being kind while maintaining firm boundaries. She believes that being yourself in a world that tries to dictate women how to look and behave is an act of rebellion that is liberating and necessary.
She lives (and thrives!) with depression and PMDD, and is currently navigating perimenopause. She's an avid advocate for destigmatizing mental illness and recognizing addiction as a symptom of pain and trauma instead of a moral failing.
Known for her honesty and deep vulnerability, she writes books about love, fear, mental health, aging, addiction, and being a woman in the world. She doesn't believe in regrets, and has learnt that owning your story will set you free.
Miriam grew up in Germany and dropped out of college at age 23 to move to Canada to be with a much-older father-of-4 with whom she'd spent less than a month. It's a great story with a happy ending, and it's the focus of her memoir Let's Pretend This Is Normal.
Her personal development book Quit the Hustle explores our society's unhealthy obsession with the hustle, and the danger of a culture that continually wants us to feel that we are not good enough.
In her most vulnerable book Everything Is Broken and Completely Fine she openly shares what it's like to live with mental illness, her history of self-medicating with alcohol, and her experience of being a healthcare worker during the pandemic.
After publishing three nonfiction books, Miriam has discovered a passion for fiction writing. Her first novel The Homeowner's Association, a psychological thriller, came out in September 2024. It's a story about female friendships and secrets in the tightly controlled neighbourhood of a fictional small town in BC, Canada. It explores the complexities and nuances of three women's lives, the often impossible choices women face, and how it's never too late to start over and free ourselves from the past.
She lives on a ranch in the interior of BC with her husband and pack of dogs. When she's not writing or taking x-rays she can be found reading, taking her dogs for long walks, kayaking, and talking at length about perimenopause and the benefits of therapy.