My name is Jowita Bydlowska and I was born in Warsaw, Poland. I moved to Canada as a teenager. Currently, I split my time between Toronto and Treaty 9. I write in my second language, English. 

In 2013, I published a controversial memoir Drunk Mom (Doubleday Canada,  HarperCollins Australia, and Penguin USA).  In 2016, I published my first novel, GUY  (Buckrider Books with Wolsak & Wynn). My second novel, Possessed was published in 2022 (Rare Machines with Dundrun). I also write short stories. My story Mother (2021) has been selected for The Best Canadian Short Stories 2022 (I was previously published in Best Stories in 2019).  My writing has appeared in a number of anthologies, including Secret Sex (a collection of erotic stories by some of the sexiest writers in CanLit, which sounds like an oxymoron but isn't). 

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My latest novel is called Monster (2024, Anvil Press) and it's a story of hunger, sex and revenge described by one reviewer as "provocative in both an intellectual and a sexual sense while still remaining more literary than smut."

 

In March of 2026 I'm publishing Unshaming, my second memoir (Singal with McLelland & Stewart). (Occasionally, I write about shame on my Substack, Unshame).

 

Imperfect, a movie based on Drunk Mom comes out in the fall of 2026. I am currently working on two collections of short stories, a memoir and a new novel. And I'm doing other things. As if you've read this far. I once had a hamster farm. 

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Occasionally, I teach creative writing at various universities, and I mentor clients individually. I’ve edited a number of book-length manuscripts, consulted on both non-fiction (memoir) and fiction. I've also published a couple of books as a ghostwriter. 

 

As a journalist, I mainly write about culture, social issues and mental health. Sometimes arts and fashion. I’ve been published in the the Globe and Mail, National Post, Toronto Star, Salon magazine, The Times UK, Elle, FASHION, Chatelaine, Hazlitt, THIS magazine, the CBC, etc.

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For fun, I take pictures, spend time with my son, my chihuahua and my other family up north. I don't have any hobbies; I take everything seriously.