Joel Wapnick is a professor at McGill University, where he teaches undergraduate and graduate courses in music education and related fields. The View North From Liberal Cemetery (2013) is his first novel.

Joel is an accomplished classical pianist and an expert Scrabble player, having won the World Championship, the Canadian Championship twice, and the North American Championship. He has written three books on the topic, the most recent of which is How to Play Scrabble Like a Champion (2010), published by Puzzlewright.