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 Medicine as Theatre, Theatre as Medicine 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 my work ever 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 2019 — as Associate Editor, Lead Editor, and now as Online Editor. 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.