Editing Lydia Kwa

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Lydia Kwa Bio:

I've been living in Canada since 1980. I went to University of Toronto to do a Bachelors of Science degree in Psychology (I managed to avoid working with rats in a maze). Then I spent 7 years at Queen's University in Kingston getting my MA and PhD. While I was at Queen's, I started to take my writing more seriously and I would drop in to a writers' group that met on the top floor of the Grad Club on Monday nights. It was a terrifying but wonderful experience. In 1989, the poems I submitted to two campus periodicals won prizes. That was encouraging. It was also the year my poems were first published in a Canadian literary magazine: CV2 out of Winnipeg, Manitoba.

I spent a couple of years after graduation working in Calgary, first at the University of Calgary Counselling Service, then at the Calgary Women's Health Collective. I moved to Vancouver in the summer of 1992. I started out working full-time as a psychologist in an organization, but I soon realized I needed to change my life so I could make writing my central focus. That was 1994, around the same time The Colours of Heroines came out. Since then, I've published This Place Called Absence and The Walking Boy, two novels.

I promised my poet self I must complete Roadbook: Suite of Hands, an experimental long poem. At the same time, I'm writing a novel set in Singapore in the late 1960s and 1970s. After that, it's back to Tang dynasty China with a prequel then a sequel to The Walking Boy.

There are a lot of issues that interest me, and they keep popping up in my work so far, in different guises. Check out the News section where I try to offer a tidbit once in a while, and mention upcoming events and readings.

In addition to writing, I have a private practice as a registered psychologist. My office address and phone number are as follows:

Suite 515-425 Carrall Street
Vancouver BC V6B 6E3

604-682-5818

For more information about my psychology private practice, please visit:

http://www.psychologists.bc.ca/users/lydiakwa

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