Strong, gorgeous women!

[Lumière]

Manon Rheaume
Olympic silver medalist







She is a Canadian goaltender and Olympic silver medalist who was the first - and as of 2008, the only -
woman to play in the NHL, having played in two exhibition games for the Tampa Bay Lightning. [wikip.]

[Lumière]

Thelma J. Chalifoux
Former Canadian politician and teacher.





Thelma was appointed to the Canadian Senate on the advice of Jean Chrétien on November 26, 1997.
She served in the Senate until February 8, 2004, when she retired and returned to Alberta
upon reaching the mandatory retirement age of 75.

Prior to her appointment to the Canadian senate she worked as a teacher,
and was active in the Métis community. She has since returned to her roots,
and now operates the Michif Cultural Institute in St. Albert, Alberta,
an organization devoted to educational efforts on behalf of the local Métis community. [wikip.]

T. Chalifoux was abandoned by an abusive husband at the age of 25.
At that time, she had a Grade 9 education and seven young children.
How inspiring then, that she went from there to complete her education, raise her family and
go on to become the First aboriginal woman in Canadian history to become a senator. 

[Ellemeno]

I love these.  Queen of hugs, the hockey player, all of them. 

I'm sad to read about your friend, Milli.  What a great idea she had, to take animals out of cages and put them in the homes of people who could appreciate them.

[Lumière]

I appreciate the sentiment, Elle. 

A few additions to the series coming up...

[Lumière]

Ruby Keeler, 1909 - 1983
Actress, singer, and dancer



Keeler was born in Dartmouth, Nova Scotia, Canada, in 1909, to an Irish Catholic family.
She was the sister of minor actresses, Helen and Gertrude Keeler.

She was most famous for her on-screen coupling with Dick Powell in a string of
successful early musicals at Warner Brothers, particularly 42nd Street.

Ruby Keeler was among the first tap dancing stars in motion pictures. Her style was an Irish Step. [wikip.]

[Lumière]

A few Canadian, lesbian writers to look out for:

Ann-Marie MacDonald
Playwright, novelist, actor



MacDonald won the Commonwealth Writers Prize for her first novel, Fall on Your Knees,
which was also named to Oprah Winfrey's Book Club.  She received the Governor General's Award for Literary Merit,
the Floyd S. Chalmers Canadian Play Award and the Canadian Author's Association Award for her play,
Goodnight Desdemona (Good Morning Juliet).

She also appeared in the films I've Heard the Mermaids Singing and Better Than Chocolate, among others.
Her 2003 novel, The Way the Crow Flies, was partly inspired by the Steven Truscott case.
MacDonald's partner is playwright and theatre director Alisa Palmer. [wikip.]


******


Makeda Silvera
Novelist, short story writer



She is a Caribbean Canadian novelist and short story writer.

Silvera emigrated to Canada at the age of 12 with her family, and currently lives in Toronto.
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 co-founder and managing editor of Sister Vision Press,
and has edited a number of anthologies, including Piece of My Heart, the first North American anthology of literature
by lesbians of colour. [wikip.]

[Lumière]

A few Canadian, lesbian writers to look out for:

Irshad Manji
Activist, author




She is an openly lesbian Canadian feminist, author, journalist, activist and professor of leadership.
Manji is Director of the Moral Courage Project at New York University.
The Moral Courage Project aims to teach young leaders to speak truth to power in their own communities.

She is a well-known critic of radical Islam and orthodox interpretations of the Qur'an.
She is founder and president of Project Ijtihad, an international charitable organization working
to "build the world’s most inclusive network of reform-minded Muslims and non-Muslim allies."
Manji's book, The Trouble with Islam Today, has been published in more than 30 languages.  [wikip.]

[Lumière]

A few Canadian, lesbian writers to look out for:

Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha
Poet, social activist



She is a Toronto-based poet, writer, educator and social activist.
Her writing and performance art focuses on documenting the stories of queer and trans people of color,
abuse survivors, mixed-race people and diasporic South Asians and Sri Lankans.
A central concern of her work is the interconnection of systems of colonialism, abuse and violence.
Consensual Genocide (2006) was her first published collection of poetry.

As a spoken word artist she has performed widely in the United States, Canada and Sri Lanka.
She teaches writing to LGBT youth at Supporting Our Youth Toronto (SOY), and is an organizer
of the Asian Arts Freedom School, a writing, performance and activist education program
for Asian/Pacific Islander youth.

In April 2007, Piepzna-Samarasinha and Maria Cristina Rangel, aka Cherry Galette,
launched Mangos With Chili, a "floating cabaret" annual tour of queer and transgender
people of color writers, dancers and performance artists. [wikip.]

[Lumière]

To one and all.... 




I trust & hope everyone had a safe and sound holiday season.

~M

[Lumière]

A few Canadian writers to look out for:

Eden Robinson



She is a Canadian novelist and short story writer.

Born in Kitamaat, British Columbia, she is a member of the Haisla and Heiltsuk First Nations.
Robinson's critically acclaimed first book, Traplines (1995), was a collection of long short stories.
She received the Ethel Wilson Fiction Prize for her second book, Monkey Beach (2000), a novel.
Her latest novel, Blood Sports, was published in 2006.