Jessica Duffin Wolfe is a Toronto-based writer, designer, and professor.

I write essays code stories plans for curious wistful reading real people.

About

I'm interested in shapes—of stories, spaces, and lives. My work often questions how structures and forms create meaning, outcomes, and impacts.

I work across media, but writing is my primary method and constant habit. I also return to design, code, cities, and mental and physical experiences of being somewhere new. Current obsessions: small apartment buildings, AI strengths and limits, community governance, vernacular typologies, modular lighting design, and housing density that empowers individuals to create their own homes. Frequent destinations: Berlin, Brisbane, Kyoto. Next Trips: London, Zoagli, Avignon. Born in Paris, based in Toronto.

I’m a writer, designer, and Professor in the Faculty of Media, Creative Arts, and Design at Humber College in Toronto, where I teach storytelling, interactive design, and code. I write regularly for The Literary Review of Canada and The Globe and Mail, and my first book, on illness and Canadian literature, appeared with Routledge in 2025. Before starting at Humber, I worked as a web developer, OCAD design history instructor, Spacing Magazine editor, and as the founding editor-in-chief of The Toronto Review of Books (2011-18, RIP). I also screened a film at the Rooftop Festival in NYC and completed a doctorate at the University of Toronto in Victorian Fiction and Visual Culture with a specialization in Book History and Print Culture.

Selected Work

Published by Routledge, June 2025 The Routledge Introduction to Canadian Literature and Illness My first book looks at how illness shapes narrative.

View Publication

The Routledge Introduction to Canadian Literature and Illness
The Globe and Mail, 2025 Dreams of Bancroft: On Co-Housing for LGBTQ Seniors Read
The Literary Review of Canada, 2025 In the Glow: On Writing and AI Read
The Globe and Mail, 2023 How Kingston became the Cambodian food capital of Canada Read
The Literary Review of Canada, 2021 A Shelter for Dreams: On Frei Otto, Berlin, and Googling Memories Read
Virtual Reality Film, 2021 The Thomas Booker Rare Fish Library A tribute in blue to fish and longing.

Experience

The Thomas Booker Rare Fish Library

Studio

My studio Colour Story lets me help clients out of digital and storytelling thickets.

I help people connect with their customers using digital tools, or tell their own stories on the platforms that matter most to their audiences. Sometimes the process is just a conversation that clarifies a new path to realizing a goal.

I do this work because I enjoy helping creative people solve problems.

Visit Colour Story