30 - Sherri Wood

Sherri Wood, a vibrant, effervescent young Toronto Sun entertainment writer, died from brain cancer last night.

George Gross gone on Good Friday at 85, Sherri Wood gone on Easter Monday at 28. A sad long weekend for Toronto Sun Family members.

"This is a horribly sad day for the Toronto Sun entertainment department," John Kryk, entertainment editor, says in today's Sun.

Sherri, born in Etobicoke, was two weeks shy of her 29th birthday.

John said Sherri's last Sun story, an April 15, 2007, review of a Kool Haus concert by Brooklyn indie-rock troupe Clap Your Hands Say Yeah, was filed just hours before she collapsed and was rushed to hospital.

"Her brain was hemorrhaging - she'd unknowingly had tumours for years - and was fast dying. She was given last rites but, unsurprisingly to all who know her, she hung on. Within weeks, Sherri was on her feet, vowing to make a complete recovery."

The miracles - and her battle - ended last night.

Former Toronto Sun TV writer Bill Brioux, who sat across from Sherri "for a few short, wonderful years," writes so eloquently about a life cut short in his TV Feeds My Family blog.

"I was always more interested in reading her face than anything on my screen," says Bill. "Her vibrancy carried me through a trying time. It was the best seat in the house, and I always knew it.

"For those of us who were lucky enough to work beside her, her death is almost unimaginable. Sherri was a life force, a girl to watch."

Bill is pictured above with Sherri during her 11-month "courageous fight against a relentless disease."

He remembers the cocky young woman's entrance at the Sun as a Humber College intern in 2004.

"She embedded herself at the Sun, breaking into the entertainment department despite a strict hiring freeze. Wood took the floor as an intern and never left; she simply kept showing up for work and filing club columns, concert reviews and basically any cool event too noisy and rambunctious for the rest of us coots. We all fell in love with her."