Author Guide · Personal Essays
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In 2015 Sarah Polley suffered a concussion whose symptoms dragged on for three and a half years. A specialist in Pittsburgh finally told her to stop resting in a dark room and to “run towards the danger”: to seek out the very things that set off her symptoms. Polley, born in Toronto in 1979, had been a child star of Road to Avonlea before becoming the director of Away from Her, Stories We Tell and Women Talking, which won her the Oscar for Best Adapted Screenplay in 2023. In 2022 she used the specialist’s advice as the title, and the method, of six essays about the memories she had avoided for decades. This guide covers her one key book, and where to begin.
By Lisanne Swart · 1 key book · 2022–2022 · Updated October 2026
ClickTap a spine to jump to that book below.
Quick answer
Sarah Polley has written one book: Run Towards the Danger: Confrontations with a Body of Memory (2022), six personal essays about her childhood as an actor, a sexual assault at 16, a high-risk pregnancy and a long concussion. It won the 2022 Toronto Book Award. Start there; her documentary Stories We Tell (2012) is the best companion to it.
Where to Start with Sarah Polley
If you want the whole book in one essay
→ Run Towards the Danger (2022) — the title essay, on the concussion and the advice that ended it.
If you know her films
→ Run Towards the Danger (2022) — “Mad Genius” and “Dissolving the Boundaries”, on growing up on film sets.
If you followed the #MeToo debates
→ Run Towards the Danger (2022) — “The Woman Who Stayed Silent”, on why she did not come forward.
Sarah Polley’s Book
Run Towards the Danger
Six essays, each built around a memory Polley had avoided: playing Alice at the Stratford Festival while living with scoliosis and stage fright after her mother’s death (“Alice, Collapsing”); explosions on the set of Terry Gilliam’s The Adventures of Baron Munchausen when she was a child (“Mad Genius”); her years on Road to Avonlea; a high-risk pregnancy; her account of being hurt by the broadcaster Jian Ghomeshi at 16 and her decision not to come forward (“The Woman Who Stayed Silent”); and the 2015 concussion that gave the book its title. Published on 1 March 2022 by Penguin Random House Canada and Penguin Press in the US, with illustrations by Lauren Tamaki, it was a No. 1 bestseller in Canada, a New York Times Book Review Editors’ Choice and winner of the 2022 Toronto Book Award.
How to Read Run Towards the Danger
The essays stand alone and you can read them in any order, but the book is arranged to end with “Run Towards the Danger”, the essay that explains why she wrote the others. Polley says in the preface that telling these stories is itself a form of running towards the danger, so reading the title essay last lets the method land.
Several essays deal with sexual assault, abuse on film sets, a difficult birth and long illness. If you want to start gently, begin with “Dissolving the Boundaries”, about a return visit to Prince Edward Island, and come back to “The Woman Who Stayed Silent” later.
A reading path
1. Her documentary Stories We Tell (2012)
2. “Alice, Collapsing”
3. “Mad Genius” and “Dissolving the Boundaries”
4. “The Woman Who Stayed Silent” and “High Risk”
5. “Run Towards the Danger”
The years · 1979–2023
Quick facts about Sarah Polley
- Known for
- Moving from child stardom in Canadian television to writing and directing films about memory and family, and then turning the same scrutiny on her own life in print.
- 1979
- Born in Toronto
- 1990
- Road to Avonlea begins on CBC
- 2006
- Directs Away from Her
- 2023
- Oscar for Women Talking
- Born
- 8 January 1979, Toronto; daughter of the actors Diane and Michael Polley
- Biological father
- The producer Harry Gulkin, the subject of her documentary Stories We Tell (2012)
- Acting
- Ramona (1988), Road to Avonlea (1990–96), Exotica (1994)
- Directing
- Away from Her (2006), Take This Waltz (2011), Stories We Tell (2012), Women Talking (2022)
- Honours
- Officer of the Order of Canada (2013); Academy Award, Best Adapted Screenplay (2023)
- Married
- The lawyer David Sandomierski, in 2011
The red mark is 2022: Run Towards the Danger, her only book.
How Sarah Polley Writes: Towards the Memory
Each essay begins with a memory she spent years not looking at, and the book says openly that it is applying a medical instruction to her own past. The concussion specialist Micky Collins told her to retrain her brain by charging towards whatever triggered her symptoms; she treats an old injury, a film set or a man she met at 16 in the same way. She also writes about how long it took: she worked on “Alice, Collapsing” for 21 years.
She does not settle for a clean version of events. In “The Woman Who Stayed Silent” she sets out the inconsistencies a lawyer warned would make her a poor witness, including her later friendly appearances on Ghomeshi’s radio show, rather than smoothing them over. In “Mad Genius” she records that Terry Gilliam apologised for some of what happened on Baron Munchausen while making clear she thinks he did not take full responsibility.
The habit comes from her films. Stories We Tell (2012) investigates her own family, and the discovery that Harry Gulkin was her biological father, by letting relatives tell competing versions of the same story. The essays do the same work with one voice and much more of her body in it: the scoliosis, the pregnancy, the brain injury.
Watch
Sarah Polley on Run Towards the Danger
At an Innis College alumni event in May 2022, Sarah Polley discusses her memoir Run Towards the Danger in a conversation moderated by Innis College Vice Principal Eva-Lynn Jagoe. From the official Innis Alumni channel.
Frequently asked questions about Sarah Polley’s books
How many books has Sarah Polley written?
One: Run Towards the Danger: Confrontations with a Body of Memory (2022), a collection of six personal essays.
How many books has Sarah Polley written?
There is only one so far: Run Towards the Danger, published on 1 March 2022 by Penguin Random House Canada and Penguin Press in the US; September Publishing publishes it in the UK.
Has Sarah Polley written more than one book?
No. Run Towards the Danger (2022) is her only book. She is mainly known as a filmmaker and actor: she wrote and directed Away from Her, Take This Waltz, Stories We Tell and Women Talking, and adapted Margaret Atwood’s Alias Grace for television.
Where should I start with Sarah Polley?
With Run Towards the Danger. If you want to try one essay first, read the title essay about her concussion; if you know her films, start with “Mad Genius”, about the set of The Adventures of Baron Munchausen.
What is Sarah Polley’s most famous book?
Run Towards the Danger (2022), her only book. It was a No. 1 national bestseller in Canada, a New York Times Book Review Editors’ Choice and winner of the 2022 Toronto Book Award.
What is Run Towards the Danger about?
Six essays on experiences Polley had avoided thinking about: her time as a child actor, including the filming of Baron Munchausen and Road to Avonlea; playing Alice at the Stratford Festival after her mother’s death; a high-risk pregnancy; a sexual assault at 16; and a concussion in 2015 that lasted three and a half years.
Where does the title Run Towards the Danger come from?
From her concussion specialist at the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center, Micky Collins. Instead of the usual advice to rest in a dark room, he told her: “if you remember nothing else from this meeting, remember this – run towards the danger”, meaning she should seek out what triggered her symptoms. She applied the same idea to writing about her past.
What does Sarah Polley write about Jian Ghomeshi?
In the essay “The Woman Who Stayed Silent” she writes that Ghomeshi, then 28, hurt her during a sexual encounter at his apartment when she was 16 and ignored her pleas to stop. When other women accused him in 2014 she did not come forward; friends and lawyers discouraged her, and she has said she had two small children and could not face it. Ghomeshi was acquitted in 2016 of charges involving three other complainants. Polley’s account has not been tested in court.
Did Sarah Polley win an Oscar?
Yes. She won the Academy Award for Best Adapted Screenplay in March 2023 for Women Talking, her adaptation of Miriam Toews’s novel. She had been nominated in the same category for Away from Her (2006), based on a story by Alice Munro.
Is Sarah Polley still alive?
Yes. She was born on 8 January 1979 in Toronto.
Footnotes
- Run Towards the Danger — Wikipedia
- Sarah Polley — The Canadian Encyclopedia
- Sarah Polley on the medical advice that inspired her — NPR, 2022
- Sarah Polley breaks silence about Jian Ghomeshi — CBC, 2022
- Oscar-worthy care — Pitt Med
- Run Towards the Danger — Penguin Random House Canada
Bibliography last verified 9 October 2026. Where sources give different first-publication years, this page uses the year in library catalogues or the publisher’s own record.
This list was not put together by a machine.
The notes are all mine,
and the books are all his.
Lisanne x
Written by Lisanne Swart, who has curated reading lists and author guides at lisanneswart.com since 2021.
See more on her personal bookshelf.
“I’ve been terrified to articulate these stories — even to myself.”
— Sarah Polley, speaking to CBC News on the publication of Run Towards the Danger (2022)
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