Makeda Silvera

Makeda Silvera (born 1955 in Kingston, Jamaica) is a Jamaican Canadian novelist and short story writer.
Biography.
Silvera emigrated to Canada at the age of 12 with her family, and currently lives in Toronto, Ontario. She published two volumes of short stories in the 1990s before releasing her first novel, "The Revenge of Maria", in 1998, followed by "The Heart Does Not Bend" in 2002. An out lesbian, she is the cofounder and managing editor of Sister Vision Press, and has edited a number of anthologies, including "Piece of My Heart" (1991), the first North American anthology of literature by lesbians of colour. "Piece of My Heart" was described in the "Canadian Journal of Women and the Law" as "a landmark collection of disparate lesbian voices. By combining reprinted material by such renowned lesbian writers as Audre Lorde, Cheryl Clarke, Jewell L. Gomez, Chrystos, and Barbara Smith with work by such thought-provoking new writers as Raymina Y. Mays, Karin Aguilar-San Juan, Milagros Paredes, and Nice Rodriguez, Silvera creates an enduring testimony to the inextricable connection between literature and social activism for innumerable multi-ethnic and multi-racial lesbians."