Jane Rule

I've just read on Alison Bechdel's blog that Jane Rule died this week in British Columbia. Her writing had a significant impact on my life, like so many other North American lesbians. Not just Desert of the Heart, but also Lesbian Images and Contract with the World.

As the CBC mentions, Rule "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." Living so close to Vancouver for so many years, I paid close attention to that particular dispute, and it helped to cement my own anticensorship/pro-pornography stance.