"In Our Own Aboriginal Voice" (Rebel Mountain, 2016), a collection of stories, poems and plays by First Nations writers, is edited by Lori Shwydky. She is currently in her fourth year (honour roll) at Vancouver Island University, majoring in Creative Writing & Publishing. She has also completed various writing for children & young adult fiction courses at the University of British Columbia.

Publishing credits:
-short story: "Cherry Pie" in Hot & Bothered: Short Short Fiction of Lesbian Desire (Anvil Press) edited by Karen X. Tulchinsky
-poem: "The Statement," published in Critical Perspectives on Accounting, volume 8, issue 5, October 1997
-book review: "Philip Roy's Seas of South Africa" in Portal Magazine 2014

Lori Shwydky has been on the Dean's Honour's list at VIU since 2012. She was the recipient of Meadowlarks Award 2014 for outstanding achievement in Creative Writing.

In 2015, Shwydky founded Rebel Mountain Press in Nanoose Bay and holds the position of managing editor. She was a team member in the creation of Portal magazine (2013-14) acting in the roles of fiction editor, copy editor, and business manager.

Shwydky is a board member of the Young Readers Choice Awards Society and publishers' liaison for the Red Cedar Book Awards. She completed an internship with book publisher Ronsdale Press in Vancouver in the spring of 2014.

She lives in Nanoose Bay.

Breaking Boundaries: LGBTQ2 Writers on Coming Out and Into Canada (Rebel Mountain Press $13.95) 2018


Nowadays when you enroll in a college you are likely going to be asked to give your name, age and your PGP--your preferred gender pronoun. Your professor might be strictly required to address you in accordance with your PGP. Will that be 'she' and 'her,' or 'he' and 'him'? Or 'it' or 'they' or none of the above?

Also, please choose between Mr, Miss, Ms or Mx.

There aren't two sexes anymore because there never were two sexes. Those who wish to reject the old school binary system can now do so under the ever-expanding umbrella of LGBTQQIAAP which stands for Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Queer, Questioning, Intersex, Asexual, Allies and Pansexual.

That second A for Allies represents those who so strongly support the rejection of the binary system that they want inclusion under the umbrella, too, although they might easily be able to be accepted as male or female.
All of which leads to Breaking Boundaries: LGBTQ2 Writers on Coming Out and Into Canada (Rebel Mountain Press $13.95) a literary anthology born of struggle, strength, resilience, compassion and determination. A group reading took place at the Vancouver Public Library, May 14, 2019 at 7 pm.
In her foreword, Robin Stevenson (author of Pride: Celebrating Diversity and Community (Orca, 2017), notes that the LGBTQ2SIA community in Canada is comprised of those who are lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, Two-Spirited, gender queer, Canadian-born, immigrant, refugee, Indigenous and settler.

"They are teenagers and seniors; single and married; coming out to parents and becoming parents themselves. Woven together, these voices leave me with a sense of hopefulness: a belief that the creativity and fierce commitment of our community will carry us forward as we work to create a Canada that lives up to the dream of freedom and safety it represents to so many people around the world."

The line-up of contributors, edited by publisher Lori Shwydky, includes authors Teryl Berg, Kyle Chen, Wendy Judith Cutler, Corrie Hope Furst, Kevin Henry, Anne Hofland, Chantal Hughes, Masaki Kidokoro, Dale Lee Kwong, Austin Lee, JL Lori, Eka Nasution, Adam Nixon, Rainer Oktovianus, Gail Marlene Schwartz, Caelan Sinclair, LS Stone, Sosania Tomlinson, E.T. Turner, Hayley Zacks-and artists Joni Danielson, Wokie Clark Fraser, Austin Lee, Trinity Lindenau, Rainer Oktovianus.
978-0-9947302-7-5

BOOKS:

Editor: In Our Own Aboriginal Voice (Rebel Mountain 2016) $10.00 978-0-9947302-4-4

Breaking Boundaries: LGBTQ2 Writers on Coming Out and Into Canada (Rebel Mountain Press, 2019) $13.95

[BCBW 2019]