Joan Thomas


Joan Thomas is a Canadian novelist and book reviewer from Winnipeg, Manitoba.

Biography

Thomas grew up in Carberry, Manitoba and later worked as a freelance journalist and book reviewer for The Globe and Mail, the Winnipeg Free Press and Prairie Fire, and as a book editor for Turnstone Press. She won a National Magazine [Award (Canada)|National Magazine Award] in 1996 for her journalism.
Thomas's debut novel Reading by Lightning won the 2009 Commonwealth Writers' Prize for Best First Book as well as the Amazon.ca [First Novel Award].
Her second novel, Curiosity, was nominated for the Scotiabank Giller Prize, the Margaret Laurence Award for Fiction, and the McNally Robinson [Book of the Year Award]. Both novels were longlisted for the International Dublin Literary Award.
Her third novel The Opening Sky was shortlisted for the Governor General's Award for English-language fiction, the Carol Shields Book Award, and the Margaret Laurence Award for Fiction. It won the McNally Robinson Book of the Year Award, and was named a CBC book of the year.
In 2014, Thomas was awarded the Writers' Trust Engel/Findley Award for a mid-career writer.
In 2019, her novel Five Wives won the Governor General's Award for English-language fiction.

Novels