The unusually bookish JoAnn McCaig writes, edits, teaches, reviews, talks about, publishes, and sells books.
Join in the conversation about reading and writing, books and films, literature and culture.
Check out JoAnn’s new novel
Your Title Goes Here
❝An immensely gutsy novel that works to both undermine and expand its own story through an entertaining and teasing literary puzzle…. This is an intelligent and, especially, a brilliantly written novel.❞
— Sharon Butala
Stories nest inside stories in this very bookish novel about the writerly process and about the places where literary ambition collides with erotic desire.
❝An immensely gutsy novel that works to both undermine and expand its own story through an entertaining and teasing literary puzzle… This is an intelligent and, especially, a brilliantly written novel.❞
— Sharon Butala
Check out JoAnn’s new novel
Meet JoAnn
Over the course of her working life, JoAnn McCaig has become an established literary authority in Western Canada. She began her writing career as an ad copywriter, and eventually earned three degrees in English literature. In her 20 years of teaching English at the University of Calgary, JoAnn ensured that hundreds of students not only overcame their fear of poetry, but also learned how to use the semicolon correctly. JoAnn published her first novel in 2000, and in 2007 became a founding board member of Calgary literary press Freehand Books. In 2010 she realized a lifelong dream by opening Shelf Life Books, an independent bookstore in Calgary’s inner city Beltline area, thereby making the circle of bookishness complete.
Thoughts on a very bookish life
“I like to involve the reader in the making of meaning, rather than handing the reader a story in a neat little package.”
I’ve been a book nerd all my life, from my earliest memories of snuggling with my mom and brother to hear the latest adventures of The Bobbsey Twins. In elementary school, I loved to find library books about historical figures like Lady Jane Grey and Spain’s Little Infanta, and I started high school in the late 60s with a copy of a Hemingway biography under my arm. In grade 11 psych class, I chose to read Dostoyevsky’s Crime and Punishment for an essay assignment on conscience.
My university years were devoted to the study and teaching of English literature. I taught English as a sessional lecturer for twenty years, and the course I enjoyed most was the historical survey class for honours and majors students, affectionately known as ‘From Beowulf to Virginia Woolf.’ When my kids were young, it was not unusual to have their viewing of the Simpsons interrupted by me yelling over the kitchen counter, “Did you catch that reference to King Lear?”
For me, having a role in introducing students to the wondrous language of Shakespeare and Keats, to the power and drama of the Brontes and Faulkner, to the visionary genius of Blake and Atwood, is a joy and a privilege. In my own work, I tend to create the kind of complex, layered structures I enjoy reading – like Swann: A Mystery by Carol Shields, or Joshua Then and Now by Mordecai Richler, or Life After Life by Kate Atkinson.
— JoAnn McCaig
In the News
My essay “My Mother’s Madness” was published in the anthology Don’t Tell: Family Secrets, from Demeter Press
You Look Good for Your Age
I’m pleased and proud to have my essay “Mastery of the Instrument” included in this fine anthology.
Queen Elizabeth II’s Platinum Jubilee Medal Recipients Announced
The Queen Elizabeth II’s Platinum Jubilee Medal is a commemorative medal in honour of the 70th anniversary of Her late Majesty’s accession to the Throne as Queen of Canada. The medal is being awarded to 7,000 Albertans throughout 2022 in recognition of significant contributions to the province.
Alberta publishing veteran Glenn Rollans buys Calgary publisher Freehand Books from co-founder JoAnn McCaig
Freehand Books, the Calgary trade publisher that spun off from the academic press Broadview Books in 2007, has been sold. Glenn Rollans, a publishing veteran in Alberta and owner of the Edmonton higher-ed publisher Brush Education, bought Freehand from co-founder and former owner JoAnn McCaig.
Book Reviews
From the blog
WRITING | RANTING | RUMINATING
Audio Books: Narration
Though there probably are exceptions, I think that the worst thing an author can do is to read his/her own work. In almost every case, this is a very bad idea.
The Dumb Down Part 2: Purple Prose
I truly expected more from the estimable Francine Prose, whose New Yorker pieces exemplify intellectual rigour and a lively feminism. (Witness her commentary on the bizarre cancellation of Elizabeth Gilbert’s upcoming novel due to the fear of upsetting certain people.)
My Pandemic in Middlemarch
Lately I’ve been getting a little irritated at Facebook boastings about all the great and lofty things that people are accomplishing in these COVID days. The ten best lists that highlight a person’s erudition or sophistication, for one thing. So announcing that I have been using this time of self isolation to finally tackle the greatest novel in English risks sounding like a boast. If so, I humbly apologize.
JoAnn’s Published Work
A Literary Life
Co-owner
Shelf Life Books
Since 2010
Book Reviewer &
Literary Authority
CBC Radio,
Alberta Views
Writer’s Union
Member
Since 2001
Board Member
Broadview Press
2007 -2019
Doctor of Philosophy
University of Calgary
1996
Master of Arts
University of Calgary
1989
Bachelor of Arts
University of Victoria
1983
Adjunct Professor
St. Mary’s University
2004-2005
Sessional Lecturer
Department of English
University of Calgary
1989 – 2009
My Mother’s Madness
Essay pulished in the anthology Don’t Tell: Family Secrets, from Demeter Press
January 2023
An Honest Woman
Thistledown Press
2019
Reading In: Alice Munro’s Archive
Wilfred Laurier University Press
2002
Reading In
grad courses in
Freehand Books
2016 to 2020
Founding Board Member
Freehand Books
2007
Received the Queen’s Platinum Jubilee Medal for service to the writing community
December 2022
Winner of the W.O. Mitchell City of Calgary Book Prize
for The Textbook of the Rose:
A Tale
2001
Shortlisted for the Georges Bugnet Award
for The Textbook of the Rose: A Tale
2001
The Textbook of the Rose: A Tale
Cormorant Books
2000
Recent Event Highlights
MEDIA
A Review of An Honest Woman
Article from Freefall Magazine
MEDIA
Article from Alberta Views
> read article
> view pdf
MEDIA
Writers Who Retail: A Reality Check
Article from Write
> read article
> view pdf
EVENT
May 27 – Online launch of the new anthology You Look Good for Your Age at Shelf Life Books.
MEDIA
Interview with Eric Volmers
Calgary Herald
MEDIA
Interview with Russell Bowers on Daybreak Alberta
CBC Radio One
> Listen
MEDIA
JoAnn McCaig sells Calgary-based Freehand Books, purchases Saskatoon’s Thistledown Press
Article from the Calgary Herald
MEDIA
SaskBooks Reviews
Book Review
> read review
Get in touch
Shelf Life Books
shelflifebooks.ca
1302 4 Street SW
Calgary, AB
(403) 265-1033
Thistledown Press
thistledownpress.com
P.O.Box 30105 Westview
Saskatoon, Sk S7L 7M6
306-244-1722