Shaun Smith is a novelist and journalist living in Toronto, Canada. His young adult novel SNAKES & LADDERS was published in January 2009 by the Dundurn Group.

As a journalist he has published over 200 articles with such publications as the Toronto Star, Toronto Life, CBC.ca, Chatelaine, ELLE Canada, The Globe & Mail, Quill & Quire and The Writer. His book blog, Shaun Smith’s Sunday Sundries, appears weekly on Open Book Toronto.

A former chef who has cooked at such establishments as Scaramouche, the David Wood Food Shop, and The Senator, he is now a food writer for the CBC and Toronto Life magazine. His column Cookbook Club appears monthly on CBC.ca. Since 1996, he has been the cookbook reviewer for Quill & Quire magazine, where he is also a Contributing Editor. He wrote the dining chapter for the Toronto & Niagara Colourguide 2nd ed., to be published in March 2010 by Formac Publishing. In 2010, he will be appearing as a guest judge on three episodes of  VIVA TV’s Chef Worthy.

As a literary critic, he has reviewed such titles as Lunar Park by Bret Easton Ellis (Toronto Star), Dress Your Family in Corduroy and Denim by David Sedaris (Toronto Star), and The Year of Magical Thinking by Joan Didion (Toronto Star). He also worked for over a dozen years in the book industry, and in 2003 he co-created the popular literary event series This Is Not A Reading Series, which he ran until 2006.

In October 2005, NOW magazine voted him the Canadian publishing industry’s “Most Valuable Player” in their Best of Toronto edition.