Leanne Toshiko Simpson is an award-winning writer, educator and mental health advocate from Toronto.
She writes joyful, messy, laugh-out-loud stories about living with mental illness, and the moments of hope that help us get out of bed day after day.
Biography
Writing
Workshops
Teaching
Never Been Better:
A Novel
Winner of the 2025 Rakuten Kobo Prize
My Best Friend’s Wedding meets The Silver Linings Playbook in this offbeat, heartfelt comedy about a seaside wedding reunion where no one can stay afloat. When it comes to happily ever afters, how is a girl supposed to choose between love and recovery?
On Never Been Better
“A sparkling romantic comedy that defies the usual tropes of the genre... Filled with a cast of flawed but utterly charming characters, Never Been Better is a story about love of all kinds: between lovers, between friends, between sisters, but most of all, the lover offered towards oneself.”
Carrianne Leung, award-winning author of That Time I Loved You
About
Leanne teaches literature and creative writing at the University of Toronto and spent the last year serving as Writer-in-Residence for Fountain House NYC.
She received an MFA from the University of Guelph and is currently completely a Doctor of Education candidate at OISE, researching the intergenerational impact of Japanese Canadian internment. Her debut novel Never Been Better is inspired by the community she has found through her mental health advocacy work post-institutionalization.