Faith Johnston is a Winnipeg writer and former Ottawa teacher. She has a Master's in Women's Studies from Carleton University and her work has been published in Dropped Threads 2, The New Quarterly, Prairie Fire, Other Voices, and A Room of One's Own. Her research for A Great Restlessness took her across the Canadian prairies, through archives in Toronto and Ottawa, and to Beijing during the 2003 SARS epidemic.