John Wesley Metcalf CM (born 12 November 1938) is an English-born Canadian writer, editor and critic.

[1] Metcalf gained an Honours Bachelor of Arts and a Certificate in Education from the University of Bristol, prior to his immigration to Canada.

[1] Many Metcalf works follow characters modeled after himself, young English teachers who immigrated to Canada and are displeased with the educational system.

[1] The Teeth of My Father is a collection of short stories with the common theme of artists' relationships with society and their artwork and personal life.

[1] The second, Girl in Gingham, follows another narrator's search for the perfect mate via an online dating service, with the undertone being his realization of people trying to invent themselves to fit what others want, or the ideals of their culture.

[3] Metcalf is a longtime critic of Canadian "cultural and educational inadequacies",[1] and published Kicking Against the Pricks in 1982 to showcase this frustration.

[1] To encourage debate on this theme within the literary community, he published The Bumper Book in 1986 and followed it with Carry On Bumping in 1988.