BA (Hons) (Mt.A), MA (SMU)
Dean Jobb is an Inglis Professor as well as cohort director and member of the faculty of the MFA in Creative Nonfiction program. He has been a faculty member of the School of Journalism, Writing & Publishing since 2004.
He is the award-winning author of eight nonfiction books. His latest, The Case of the Murderous Dr. Cream, won the inaugural CrimeCon CLUE Award for True Crime Book of the Year and was longlisted for the American Library Association’s Andrew Carnegie Medal for Excellence in Nonfiction. It also received an honourable mention in the Chicago Writers Association Book of the Year competition and was a Washington Post pick as one of the top 50 nonfiction books of 2021. It has been translated into French and Japanese.
His previous book, Empire of Deception, was the Chicago Writers Association Book of the Year for 2015, won the Crime Writers of Canada award for best true crime book, and was a finalist for Canada’s top nonfiction award, the Hilary Weston Writers’ Trust Prize.
A Gentleman and a Thief, Dean’s next true crime book, will be released in June 2024. He is also the author of The Acadian Saga and two collections of Nova Scotia true crime stories. His textbook Media Law in Canada, now in its 4th edition, is used as a reference in journalism program and newsrooms across the country. He is a past winner of the Evelyn Richardson and City of Dartmouth book awards for nonfiction and his books have been shortlisted for the National Business Book Award and other prizes.
Dean’s monthly column on true crime, “Stranger Than Fiction,” appears in Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine and his work has been published in the Globe and Mail, Toronto Star, Winnipeg Free Press, CrimeReads, The Walrus, Literary Review of Canada, and Canada’s History magazine. He is a contributing writer for the Chicago Review of Books and he also reviews nonfiction for The Irish Times, The Scotsman, the Washington Independent Review of Books, and the Southern Review of Books.
He is a former reporter, editor, and columnist for the Halifax Chronicle Herald. A three-time winner of the Atlantic Journalism Award, he also has been nominated for a National Newspaper Award for investigative reporting and a National Magazine Award. Take a look at his website.
Selected Publications
- A Gentleman and a Thief: The Daring Jewel Heists of a Jazz Age Rogue. Coming in June 2024 from Algonquin Books and HarperCollins Canada.
- The Case of the Murderous Dr. Cream: The Hunt For a Victorian Era Serial Killer. Algonquin Books and HarperCollins Canada 2021.
- Empire of Deception: The Incredible Story of a Master Swindler Who Seduced a City and Captivated the Nation. Algonquin Books and HarperCollins Canada 2015.
- The Acadian Saga: A People’s Story of Exile and Triumph. Nimbus Publishing 2022.
- Daring, Devious & Deadly: True Tales of Crime and Justice from Nova Scotia’s Past. Pottersfield Press 2020.
- Madness, Mayhem & Murder: More True Tales of Crime and Justice from Nova Scotia’s Past. Pottersfield Press 2021.
- Media Law in Canada, 4th ed. Emond Publications 2023.
- Digging Deeper: A Canadian Reporter’s Research Guide, 3rd ed. Oxford University Press 2015 (co-author).
- “Telling True Stories: Creative Approaches to Bringing Nonfiction to Life,” in Storytelling: Global Reflections on Narrative. Brill/Rodopi 2019.
- Calculated Risk: Greed, Politics and the Westray Tragedy. Nimbus 1994.
Research Interests
True crime writing; the craft of narrative nonfiction; crime and justice; Canadian and American history; media law and ethics; freedom of the press
