Winnipeg novelist Joan Thomas has been named the 2012-13 writer-in-residence for the Winnipeg Public Library.

Established in 1985, the WPL's writer-in-residence program is designed to give new, emerging, and established local writers a chance to have their manuscripts read and critiqued by an accomplished author.

Joan Thomas will be the Winnipeg Public Library's writer-in-residence from October 2012 to April 2013. (artscouncil.mb.ca)

During her tenure, from Oct. 1, 2012, to April 2013, Thomas will work with the public through individual consultations and workshops, in addition to allocating time to her own writing.

“A writer’s apprenticeship is long and solitary. I see my role as accompanying writers for a stretch, asking the questions that will help them find direction for the next stage of the journey,” Thomas said in a release from the WPL.

Thomas' debut novel, Reading By Lightning, won the 2009 Commonwealth Writers' Prize for Best First Book as well as the Amazon.ca First Book Award, while her second novel, Curiosity, was released in 2011 and nominated for the Scotiabank Giller Prize, the Margaret Laurence Award for Fiction, and the McNally Robinson Book of the Year Award.

She has studied at the University of Winnipeg and taught high school English, as well as worked as a freelance writer, reviewer, a book editor for Turnstone Press, and a literary mentor at the Banff Centre for the Arts.