Born in Noranda, Quebec, Dorris Heffron has an Honours B.A.and M.A. in Literature and Philosophy from Queen's University, Canada. Heffron lived in Oxford, England from 1968-1980 where she was a tutor for Oxford University and The Open University, giving courses in Literature. While there, she wrote three novels about teenagers, published by Macmillan, London. Internationally acclaimed, they are regarded as pioneers in the genre of young adult fiction. They were translated and put on high school courses in Europe, Japan and Canada. 

During sabbaticals, she taught creative writing at the University of Malaysia and resided while writing and teaching, in Holland, France and Cape Breton Island. Heffron returned to Toronto in 1980. She has served on the National Council of The Writers' Union, the Board of Directors of PEN Canada, The Writers Trust of Canada, the Toronto Arts Council and the Board of Directors of the Native Men's Residence. She has been a library writer-in-residence and book reviewer for the Globe and Mail. Dorris Heffron was  Chair of The Writers' Union of Canada June 2013 to June 2014.

Heffron's first adult's novel, the popular, A Shark in the House  is about a woman dentist in Toronto who reluctantly finds herself involved in the 1992 Indigenous standoff at Oka. Told with humour and compassion, it is a story of love and striving, death and survival, of people on both sides of the barricades.

Heffron's next novel, City Wolves is the story of Canada's first woman veterinarian who becomes the notorious 'Dog Doctor of Halifax' in the 1890s and winds up in the Klondike gold rush tending sled dogs. At the heart of the novel is the ancient story of how wolves became sled dogs. Uniquely Canadian and profoundly universal, City Wolves  subtly reveals the human nature of wolves and the wolf-life nature of humans.

Bear With Me, Heffron's new novel, launched in October 2024, is connected to City Wolves but is not a sequel. Nor is it about bears. It is the story of Clare, a wildlife photographer in a long second marriage that has become dangerous. Based in Ottawa, Clare's work takes her to far flung places in Canada.  With up and coming young photographer, Michelle Valberg, Clare goes to the High Arctic, camping on ice at the floe edge where the animals gather during the summer solstice. Invited to Fort McMurray to see hybrid wolves, Clare is given an insider's view of the people and industry of the oil sands city when flown over the area by an Indigenous entrepreneur. Back in Ottawa, Clare throws a life changing 70th birthday party and deals with the violent abuse in her marriage. The story ends with fireworks, Canadian style.    

Dorris Heffron  lives on a property called Little Creek Wolf Range, two hours north of Toronto.  For more about her novels,  writing career and recent articles by or about her, visit her website:  www.dorrisheffron.ca