This is the thirtieth  post in a
series highlighting the best gay and lesbian authors from the 20th century (with a few before and after that period) who have recorded in
fiction, and nonfiction, the history of gay people telling what life is,
and was, during an important time of history.

     

Jane Vance Rule, CM, OBC (28 March 1931 – 27 November 2007)[1] was a Canadian writer of lesbian-themed novels and non-fiction.

Biography
Born in Plainfield, New Jersey, Jane Vance Rule was the oldest daughter
of Carlotta Jane (Hink) and Arthur Richards Rule. She claimed she was a
tomboy growing up and felt like an outsider for reaching six feet tall
and being dyslexic. When she was 15 she read The Well of Loneliness and
wrote later, "suddenly discovered that I was a freak."
Rule studied at Mills College in California. She graduated in 1952,
moved to England for a short while and entered in a relationship with
critic John Hulcoop. She taught at Concord Academy in Massachusetts
where she met Helen Sonthoff and fell in love with her. Rule moved with
Hulcoop to work at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver,
British Columbia in 1956, but Sonthoff visited her and they began to
live together.

  



 
In
1964, Rule published Desert of the Heart, after 22 rejections from
publishers. The novel featured two women who fall in love with each
other and caused Rule to receive a flood of letters from "very unhappy,
even desperate" women who felt they were alone and would be miserable.
The novel caused her to be sought out by Canadian media, and Rule later
wrote, "I became, for the media, the only lesbian in Canada. A role I
gradually and very reluctantly accepted and used to educate people as I
could." In 1976, she moved to Galiano Island and remained there until
the end of her life. Rule's novel was later made into a movie by Donna
Deitch, released as Desert Hearts (1985) becoming a lesbian classic. The
Globe and Mail said of it, "the film is one of the first and most
highly regarded works in which a lesbian relationship is depicted
favourably."
Rule served on the executive of the Writers' Union of Canada. She was an
outspoken advocate of both free speech and gay rights, included in the
various controversies surrounding the gay magazine The Body Politic.

In
1989, Rule donated a collection of her writings to the University of
British Columbia. Rule was inducted into the Order of British Columbia
in 1998, and into the Order of Canada in 2007, both award ceremonies
taking place, at Rule's initiative, in her home community. She remarked,
"I chose Canada over 50 years ago. So it is very nice to have Canada
choose me", about receiving the latter honour. Memory Board (1987) and
After the Fire (1989) were both nominated for the Ethel Wilson Fiction
Prize.

Rule and Sonthoff lived together until Sonthoff's death in 2000.

Rule
died at the age of 76 on November 28, 2007 at her home on Galiano
Island due to complications from liver cancer, refusing any treatment
that would take her from the island, opting instead for the care &
support that could be provided by her niece & partner, her many
Galiano friends & neighbours. The ashes of Jane Vance Rule were
interred in the Galiano Is. Cemetery next to those of her beloved Helen
Hubbard Wolfe Sonthoff.

Bibliography

Desert of the Heart (1964)
This Is Not for You (1970) Naiad Press
Against the Season (1971) Naiad Press
Lesbian Images (1975) The Crossing Press
Theme for Diverse Instruments (1975)
The Young in One Another's Arms (1977) Naiad Press
Contract With the World (1980)
Outlander (1981) Naiad Press
Inland Passage and Other Stories (1985) Naiad Press
A Hot-Eyed Moderate (1985) Naiad Press
Memory Board (1987) Naiad Press
After the Fire (1989) Naiad Press