LFW 
Activist, attorney and author Urvashi Vaid died of breast cancer on May 18, 2022. Born in New Delhi, India, Vaid moved to the USA when she was a child. She attended Vassar College in Poughkeepsie, New York, graduating with degrees in English and Political Science in 1979. A year later she enrolled in law school … Read more
On New Year’s Eve in 1947, Patricia Highsmith raised a toast. She drank to “all the devils, lusts, passions, greeds, envies, loves, hates, strange desires” and wished to be left free of her inner struggles. Richard Bradford used that toast as the title of his 2021 biography, and it’s hard to imagine a better one. … Read more
Writer Frances Eleanor Cherry died April 24, 2022 after fighting Parkinson’s disease, leaving an extensive legacy in literature and a life-long commitment to anti-establishment themes, which often accompanied her writing. Daughter Caitlin Cherry led funeral-goers in a rendition of one of her mother’s favourite songs, Ode to a Gym Teacher. The anthem was a … Read more
Ah, books. Who could possibly get through a winter without them? Lots of people you say? Something about television, you say? But books touch a different part of the mind, and the soul. Watch TV, sure, but always make room in your heart and soul for books. Pale Rider: The Spanish Flu of 1918 … Read more
Lesbian icon and author Leslie Cohen passed away in Miami, Florida on March 16, 2022. Cohen was the author of the memoir The Audacity of a Kiss. She grew up in Queens, New York, and attended Buffalo State College, then Queens College. Cohen received her Master’s degree in Art History. She worked at Artforum magazine … Read more
Every year, CBC’s Canada Reads asks a panel of well-known Canadians to argue for one book the whole country should read. In 2020, the winner was a memoir by a queer Muslim woman who grew up in Pakistan and found herself in Toronto. Actor Amanda Brugel championed it, and the book was Samra Habib’s We … Read more
On December 15, 2021, esteemed Black queer feminist author bell hooks (Gloria Jean Watkins) passed away at her home in Berea, Ky. She was 69. Her sister Gwenda Motley said the cause was end-stage renal failure. The American activist and author was a Distinguished Professor in Residence at Berea College. Her work focused on the … Read more
The subtitle is the first clue. Crossfire: A Litany for Survival borrows its second half from Audre Lorde, whose poem “A Litany for Survival” has been a touchstone for Black lesbian writers since the 1970s. Putting that phrase on your cover is a statement of lineage. Staceyann Chin is telling you exactly whose tradition she’s … Read more
Imagine turning on Netflix and finding a version of yourself on the screen. Same past, same crimes, same ex-girlfriend. Different name, better eyeliner. That’s roughly what happened to Cleary Wolters. Wolters is the real-life inspiration for Alex Vause, the glamorous drug-trade girlfriend Laura Prepon played on Orange Is the New Black. The series was adapted … Read more
Some memoirs take 500 pages to get out of the author’s childhood. Casey Legler’s Godspeed covers an Olympic career, an addiction, and a teenager’s near-total collapse in 176. The New York Times called it “lean and ferocious,” which is about as accurate a two-word review as you’ll find. The shortness fits the subject. Legler was … Read more