Jane Rule

Five women at critical crossroads in their lives come together in this gem of a novel set on an island off the coast of Vancouver
After the Fire introduces a quintet of very different women as they struggle with abandonment, loss, and new beginnings—both together and alone. There is Karen Tasuki, who recently separated from her partner and wonders if she'll ever get used to being alone . . . until she befriends Red, who cleans...

An estranged brother and sister reconnect in this moving novel from “perhaps the most significant lesbian fiction writer of the 20th century” (Katherine V. Forrest, author of Curious Wine).
 When the novel opens, Diana’s twin brother, David, a widower in his mid-sixties, is looking back on his life. As memories swamp him, he decides to take a critical step: to beg for his sister’s forgiveness. Diana...

An award-winning novel of lesbian identity and camaraderie amid violence and war
Ruth Wheeler is the one-armed caretaker of a motley crew of boarders living in her rooming house in Vancouver, British Columbia. The miscreants and outcasts in residence include a sexually confused academic, a one-time-dope-addict-turned-law-student, a high-minded deserter of the Vietnam War, a socially conscious female radical, and a gay man on the run from...

With an afterword by Linda M. Morra

Discovered in her papers in 2008, Jane Rule's autobiography is a rich and culturally significant document that follows the first twenty-one years of her life: the complexities of her relationships with family, friends, and early lovers, and how her sensibilities were fashioned by mentors or impeded by the socio-cultural practices and educational ­politics of the day.

In writing about

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Told as a series of interconnected stories, Jane Rule’s fifth novel—offering six characters’ shifting perspectives—takes us to a place where feminism, creativity, and sexual politics collide 
Contract with the World follows a group of friends, artists, and lovers as they negotiate the shifting terrain of the 1970s—a time when gay and lesbian politics were just emerging.   Divided into six...

The essays in this inspiring collection analyze the craft of writing and the art of living and loving    
Jane Rule shares her insights into the creative process, sexual fidelity, feminist politics, and the transformative power of love.      Part I—“On Writing”—dispenses advice (writing is “a craft that has to be practiced”); offers observations (“The creative process...