Joan Thomas (born 1949) is a Canadian novelist and book reviewer from Winnipeg, Manitoba. Thomas grew up in Carberry, Manitoba and later worked as a freelance journalist and book reviewer for The Globe and Mail, the Winnipeg Free Press and Prairie Fire, and as a book editor for Turnstone Press. She won a National Magazine Award in 1996 for her journalism. Thomas's debut novel Reading by Lightning won the 2009 Commonwealth Writers' Prize for Best First Book (Canada/Caribbean) as well as the Amazon.ca First Novel Award.