Joanne Gallant is an author and pediatric nurse living in Halifax, Nova Scotia. Her debut book, A WOMB IN THE SHAPE OF A HEART (Nimbus Publishing), was released in September 2021. It won the Margaret and John Savage First Book Award for Non-Fiction.

Original cover design by Briana Corr Scott

Praise for A Womb in the Shape of a Heart:

“For all those living silently through infertility, multiple miscarriages, and other reproductive issues, A Womb in the Shape of a Heart will be a lifeline.”

-Quill & Quire

“A Womb in the Shape of a Heart is not so much about the issues of miscarriage and motherhood, but about the humanity of personal trauma. She is an astonishingly good writer, which for a first book is a premium. Her imagery and her descriptions of her internal turmoil and constant grief after so many miscarriages are never tiresome.”

-The Miramichi Reader

“This book is a love letter: to the cherished babies the author has lost, to her cherished son who stayed, to her loving husband, to the health-care professionals who guided them through with kindness, and also to herself—the person she was before, during, and after her miscarriages. A Womb In the Shape of a Heart is also a love letter to anyone who has ever experienced the everlasting ache of pregnancy loss. By so generously sharing her own story, Joanne Gallant has opened up a space for us where grief and joy can exist together. Her tender words burrowed into me and found a home, and I’m so grateful she wrote them.”

-Jessica Westhead, author of Worry

“Joanne Gallant’s exquisite chronicle of loss transforms the private anguish of so many women into revelatory beauty. Candid, fierce and embracing, A Womb in the Shape of a Heart is a lyric testimony to the ways hope can both betray and redeem us. Gallant’s courageous memoir is solace for those grieving in silence, an elegy filled with wisdom and grace.”

–Lorri Neilsen Glenn, award-winning author of Following the River: Traces of Red River Women

“Becoming a mother is emotional and uncharted territory no matter what our outcomes. Joanne Gallant’s deeply resonant memoir is both raw and gentle, a kindness for those of us who have found grief and tumult as well as hope, resilience, and renewal along that journey.”

-Kate Inglis, award-winning author of Notes for the Everlost: A Field Guide to Grief

“Beautiful, brave and heartbreaking, Joanne Gallant’s A Womb in the Shape of a Heart illuminates both the joys of motherhood and the grief of miscarriage in equal measure. With suspenseful storytelling and honest revelation, this is a compelling read.”

-Beth Powning, author of Shadow Child: An Apprenticeship in Love and Loss

“Many mothers— people with children as well as those who long for them— will be grateful that Joanne Gallant has shared her story. I know I am. Her debut memoir contains so many of the paradoxes of life: how the greatest joys can be underscored with the deepest terrors, how hope can be so tightly woven into grief, but ultimately, it is the love in this book that will stay with me. Her love for her child, for her husband, for the babies she lost, but also for the vulnerability she reveals in this moving book, which, in another one of those paradoxes, she shows us can also be an act of love.”

–Harriet Alida Lye, author of The Honey Farm and Natural Killer

“Joanne Gallant’s A Womb in the Shape of a Heart is a must-read for anyone who knows the heartache of pregnancy loss. I wish this book existed when I was going through my own experience with infertility and multiple miscarriages. Joanne's candid memoir is honest, hopeful, and soothing. Her words are a warm cup of tea on a cold winter's day.”

–Ariel Ng Bourbonnais, author of Through, Not Around: Stories of Infertility and Pregnancy Loss

“A Womb in the Shape of a Heart is raw, vulnerable, emotional, and read. Gallant takes her own story and makes it something that others who have struggled with infertility and experienced miscarriages will find solace in.”

-Cloud Lake Literary