Joel Faber

I'm a writer and editor, working through the literary arts to build meaningful relationships and communities.

Toronto, Canada

Editing

I edit scholarly writing in the humanities and social sciences — books, articles, and chapters for researchers from postdoctoral fellows to emeritus professors. Recent projects include Medicine as Theatre, Theatre as Medicine (Bloomsbury, 2026) and articles for Mémoires du livre/Studies in Book Culture. My editorial practice follows the Editors Canada professional standards across all four stages, from developmental editing to proofreading.

At the University of Toronto Scarborough, I facilitate nominations for national and international research awards as Research Awards & Honours Officer in the Office of the Vice-Principal, Research & Innovation.

Editorial services & portfolio →
Cover of Critical Humanities and Ageing Cover of Mémoires du livre / Studies in Book Culture 14.2

Writing

My own writing began in scholarship. My dissertation shows how fresh representations of women’s friendships in early modern English literature (c. 1550-1650) critiqued and expanded the discourse of ideal friendship, providing new models largely overlooked by the modern scholarly conversation. That training in patient, historically attentive reading has shaped everything I have written since.

Read my paper "Spaces That Want Friends" →

I have served on the editorial team of Imprint, an annual literary and visual arts magazine based in Toronto, since 2018 — as Associate Editor, Lead Editor, and now as Online Editor. Most of my essays first appeared in its pages. These days I write personal essays and occasional poems, pieces that begin in the ordinary and discover the sacred.

Essays & poems →
A desk nameplate reading Dr. J. Faber, on a shelf of books
I completed my PhD in English at the University of Toronto in 2021. I inherited my grandfather's nameplate when I did.

Photographs — 35 mm film

Art is a practice of attending to beauty.