UPDATE: Jane Rule has been inducted as a member into the Order of Canada, announced February 20, 2007. In January, Jane also received the Alice B. Toklas Medal (US) for her long and storied career as a lesbian novelist.
Jane Rule's 1977 novel The Young in One Another's Arms is set at the end of the Vietnam War in and around a boarding house in the Kitsilano neighborhood of Vancouver. Ruth, a middle-aged woman accustomed to tragedy in her own life, cares for the young and changing boarders of her house as a mother and guide.

First published by Doubleday and reprinted by The Naiad Press, The Young in One Another's Arms is about the building of female communities. Combining issues of race, gender, sexuality and politics, this warm, sophisticated novel celebrates the cameraderie and strength of women against a backdrop of war and tragedy. The novel won the Canadian Authors Association Best Novel of the Year Award in 1978.

With an introduction by novelist Katherine V. Forrest (Curious Wine and Daughters of a Coral Dawn).

"Lesbian identity itself is not so much subsumed into the community as kept whole within it . . . not singled out as an angle of vision any more or less valid than others." -Marilyn Schuster, Feminist Studies

Little Sister's Classics is a series of books from Arsenal Pulp Press, reviving lost and out-of-print classics of gay and lesbian literature. The books in the series are produced in conjunction with Little Sister's, the Canadian bookstore well-known for its anti-censorship efforts.

Jane Rule
Jane Rule was born in New Jersey in 1931 and came to Canada in 1956, where she later taught at the University of British Columbia. Her first novel, Desert of the Heart (1964), in which two women fall in love in 1950s Reno, Nevada, was successful as a 1985 feature film called Desert Hearts.

Rule emerged as one of the most respected writers in Canada with her many novels, essays and collections of short stories, including Theme for Diverse Instruments (1975). She received the Canadian Authors Association best novel and best short story awards, the American Gay Academic Literature Award, the U.S. Fund for Human Dignity Award of Merit, the Canadian National Institute for the Blind's Talking Book of the Year Award and an honorary doctorate of letters from the University of British Columbia.

In 1996, Rule received the George Woodcock Lifetime Achievement Award for an Outstanding Literary Career in British Columbia. Rule passed away in 2007.

Linda M. Morra
Linda Morra holds a PhD in Canadian literature from the University of Ottawa. She teaches at Bishop's University and lives in Montreal. Morra is currently working on a monograph in which she explores Canadian women writers' self-agency and textual integrity in relation to the publishing industry in Canada.

Jane Rule's profile page

Katherine V. Forrest is twice winner of the Lambda Literary Award for best mystery, and has been recently honored with the Pioneer Award from the Lambda Literary Foundation. She has been profiled in virtually every major lesbian and gay publication in America, as well as in numerous magazines and newspapers abroad. Katherine lives in San Francisco.

Katherine V. Forrest's profile page

• Winner, Canadian Authors Assoc.'s Best Novel Award

While Rule's writing may be pedagogical it is never didactic and the book stands up to the intervening years so that as contemporary readers we may not only assess our progress but do it while reading a good story by one of our most iconic writers.
-Xtra!

Xtra!

A classic that would be an asset to any collection.
-American Library Association GLBTRT Newsletter

ALA GLBT NEWSLETTER

Jane Rule is one of our finest writers and for those few who are unfamiliar with her work, The Young in One Another's Arms will provide a clear example of how deserving this reputation is. This tale of Ruth and her boarding house inhabitants will move and enchant you.
-Wayves

Wayves

Jane Rule's The Young in One Another's Arms is a mature and satisfying work that definitely stands the test of time.
-Bay Area Reporter

Bay Area Reporter

It's a really nice little paperback edtion with a quality binding, and even includes appendices with some of the old newspaper and magazine reviews.
-Liberty Press

Liberty Press