Makeda Silvera is a Caribbean Canadian

Black Canadian

'Black Canadians is a designation used for people of Black African descent, who are citizens or permanent residents of Canada. The term specifically refers to Canadians with Sub-Saharan African ancestry. The majority of Black Canadians are of Caribbean origin...

 novelist and short story

Short story

A short story is a work of fiction that is usually written in prose, often in narrative format. This format tends to be more pointed than longer works of fiction, such as novellas and novels. Short story definitions based on length differ somewhat, even among professional writers, in part because...

 writer.

Silvera emigrated to Canada

Canada

Canada is a North American country consisting of ten provinces and three territories. Located in the northern part of the continent, it extends from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west, and northward into the Arctic Ocean...

 at the age of 12 with her family, and currently lives in Toronto

Toronto

Toronto is the provincial capital of Ontario and the largest city in Canada. It is located in Southern Ontario on the northwestern shore of Lake Ontario. A relatively modern city, Toronto's history dates back to the late-18th century, when its land was first purchased by the British monarchy from...

. 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

Coming out

Coming out is a figure of speech for lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender people's disclosure of their sexual orientation and/or gender identity....

 lesbian

Lesbian

Lesbian is a term most widely used in the English language to describe sexual and romantic desire between females. The word may be used as a noun, to refer to women who identify themselves or who are characterized by others as having the primary attribute of female homosexuality, or as an...

, she is the cofounder 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.

Works

• Silenced: Caribbean Domestic Workers Talk With Makeda Silvera' (1989, interviews)
• Remembering G (1990, short stories)
• Piece of My Heart: A Lesbian-of-Colour Anthology (1991, ed.)
• Her Head a Village (1994, short stories)
• The Other Woman: Women of Colour in Contemporary Canadian Literature (1994, ed.)
• Ma-Ka: Diaspora Juks (1997, ed.)
• The Heart Does Not Bend (2002, novel)