About

Jowita is the author of five books of fiction and nonfiction.

Her most recent book, Unshaming: A Memoir of Recovery, Relapse and What Comes After (2026), was a Globe and Mail bestseller. A follow-up to her bestselling memoir Drunk Mom, Unshaming is about addiction, relapse, recovery, motherhood and shame—and what happens when recovery refuses to follow the tidy narrative we want it to.

Jowita is also the author of the novels Monster (2024), Possessed (2022), and the bestselling GUY (2016), as well as the bestselling memoir Drunk Mom (2013).

She is a prolific short-story writer, journalist and mentor. Her fiction has appeared in The Walrus, Hazlitt, Joyland, Maisonneuve and elsewhere, and has been anthologized in Best Canadian Stories.

Her favourite Goodreads review is a review of Possessed, which reads: “Jesus Christ.”

Her other favourite is a one-star review of Monster: “If someone is interested in the sexual adventures of a mentally ill woman, this book is for them.”

Jowita was born in Warsaw, Poland, and moved to Canada as a teenager. She writes in English, her second language, and lives between Toronto (Tkaronto) and Treaty 9 in Northern Ontario.

She is currently working on How the Wolf Moves, a nonfiction book about—and for—the people who love addicts.