Joan Barfoot was born on May 17, 1946 in Owen Sound, Ontario, and graduated with a degree in English from the University of Western Ontario in 1969. She worked as a reporter and editor for various newspapers in Ontario including the Windsor Star, the Toronto Sun and the London Free Press.

In 1986, her second novel, Dancing in the Dark (1982), became a movie of the same name, starring Martha Henry. It won three Genie Awards, including Best Art Direction, Best Adapted Screenplay, and Best Performance by an Actress in a Leading Role.

Barfoot's work has been compared internationally with that of Anne Tyler, Carol Shields, Margaret Drabble, Fay Weldon and Margaret Atwood.

In 1992, she won the Marian Engel Award, presented each year by the Writers' Trust of Canada to a female Canadian novelist who is in the middle of her career.

She lives in London, Ontario.

In 2005, the Giller jury committee, describing Luck, wrote that “Joan Barfoot is at the peak of her powers with this splendidly realized tragicomedy about a household in the wake of an unexpected death. With its note-perfect narration, mordant wit and wonderfully neurotic cast of characters, Luck shows how death can reveal life in all its absurdity and complexity. This scintillating comedy of manners is also a profound meditation on fate, love, and artifice.”