Jane Rule 1931-2007

from the League of Canadian Poets newsletter:

AUTHOR AND ADVOCATE JANE RULE DIES AT 76

British Columbia writer Jane Rule, author of Desert of the Heart and a mentor to dozens of other B.C. writers has died. She was 76. Rule died Tuesday of complications from liver cancer at her home on Galiano Island, B.C. She is considered a pioneer of lesbian-themed novels and non-fiction and was an advocate for homosexual rights. Her works include the fiction works Outlander, This is Not for You and Memory Board. Rule was born in New Jersey and educated at Mills College in California. She immigrated to Vancouver in 1956 and held a variety of jobs to support herself while she wrote. She and her long-term partner Helen Sonthoff, who had a tenured position at the University of British Columbia, became Canadian citizens in the early 1960s. Rule supported the Writers' Union and the gay liberation magazine The Body Politic, where she wrote essays and a regular column, So's Your Grandmother from 1979 through 1985. She also defended Little Sister's Book and Art Emporium in its 15-year legal dispute with Canadian Customs Officials over imports of gay and lesbian erotica. She was given the Order of British Columbia in 1998 and the Order of Canada in 2007.

CBC British Columbia http://www.cbc.ca/canada/british-columbia/story/2007/11/28/jane-rule.html