Amber Dawn

Canadian writer

Writer
editor
poet

Period2000s–presentNotable worksSub RosaNotable awards2012 Dayne Ogilvie Prize
2011 Lambda Literary Award for Lesbian Debut FictionWebsitewww.amberdawnwrites.com

Amber Dawn is a Canadian writer, who won the 2012 Dayne Ogilvie Prize, presented by the Writers' Trust of Canada to an emerging lesbian, gay, bisexual or transgender writer.^[1]

A writer, filmmaker, and performance artist based in Vancouver, British Columbia, Dawn published her debut novel Sub Rosa in 2010. The novel later won that year's Lambda Literary Award for LGBT Debut Fiction, Lesbian.^[2] In 2013 she released a new book of essays and poems entitled How Poetry Saved My Life: A Hustler's Memoir.^[3]^[4] The book was a shortlisted nominee in the Lesbian Memoir/Biography category at the 26th Lambda Literary Awards, and won the 2013 City of Vancouver Book Award.^[5]

Dawn was also an editor of the anthology Fist of the Spider Woman: Tales of Fear and Queer Desire, a nominee for the Lambda Literary Award for Science Fiction, Fantasy and Horror in 2009, and co-editor with Trish Kelly of With a Rough Tongue: Femmes Write Porn.^[1]

Dawn was director of programming for the Vancouver Queer Film Festival for four years, ending in 2012.^[6] In 2017, she rejoined the Vancouver Queer Film Festival as co-artistic director with Anoushka Ratnarajah.^[7]

She served alongside Vivek Shraya and Anne Fleming on the Dayne Ogilvie Prize jury in 2013, selecting C. E. Gatchalian as that year's winner.^[8]

Her novel, Sodom Road Exit, was published in 2018.^[9] It was shortlisted for the Lambda Literary Award for Lesbian Fiction at the 31st Lambda Literary Awards in 2019.^[10]

Bibliography

Published	Title	Type	ISBN	Notes
2005	With a Rough Tongue: Femmes Write Porn	Anthology	ISBN 978-1551521930	editor
2009	Fist of the Spider Woman: Tales of Fear and Queer Desire	Anthology	ISBN 978-1551522517	editor
2010	Sub Rosa	Novel	ISBN 978-1551523613
2013	How Poetry Saved My Life	Autobiographical	ISBN 978-1551525006
2015	Where the Words End and My Body Begins	Poetry Collection	ISBN 978-1551525839
2018	Sodom Road Exit	Novel	ISBN 978-1551527161
2019	Hustling Verse: An Anthology of Sex Workers' Poetry	Collection	ISBN 978-1551527819	editor
2020	My Art is Killing Me and Other Poems	Poetry Collection	ISBN 978-1551527932

References

^ ^a ^b "Vancouver's Amber Dawn wins LGBT literary award". CBC News, June 26, 2012.
^ "Canadian authors celebrated at the Lambda Awards". Quill & Quire, May 27, 2011.
^ Kit-Bacon Gressitt (April 30, 2013). "BOOK REVIEW: Amber Dawn's "How Poetry Saved My Life: A Hustler's Memoir"". San Diego Gay and Lesbian News. Retrieved April 30, 2013.
^ "The red fingernail of authority" Archived June 2, 2013, at the Wayback Machine. Xtra!, April 19, 2013.
^ "Dawn's sex-trade memoir nabs City of Vancouver award". Vancouver Sun, November 23, 2013.
^ Takeuchi, Craig (August 27, 2012). "Amber Dawn leaves Vancouver Queer Film Festival for literary life". The Georgia Straight. Retrieved June 5, 2013.
^ "Vancouver Queer Film Fest nets two arts luminaries as artistic directors" Archived March 15, 2018, at the Wayback Machine. Vancouver Metro, March 17, 2017.
^ "C. E. Gatchalian wins Dayne Ogilvie Prize" Archived June 29, 2013, at archive.today. National Post, June 27, 2013.
^ "How an abandoned small-town theme park inspired Amber Dawn's new novel". CBC Books, May 7, 2018.
^ "Vivek Shraya, Joshua Whitehead among Canadian finalists for Lambda Literary Awards". Quill & Quire, March 7, 2019.