Born in
Plainfield,
New Jersey, Jane Vance Rule was the oldest daughter of Carlotta Jane Hink-Packer and Arthur Richards Rule. Both her parents were college educated and her father worked in the military. Rule described her mother as "a materially spoiled and emotionally depraved only child". Rule was also the middle of three children, with an older brother and a younger sister. She says she was a
tomboy growing up and felt like an outsider for reaching six feet tall by age 12 and being
dyslexic. When she was 15 she read
The Well of Loneliness and wrote later that she "suddenly discovered that [she] was a freak." to spend a year in
London, following a female lover. There, she was an occasional student at
University College, London, and began work on her first novel. Rule returned to the U.S. to work at the writing department at
Stanford University, but she quit after a few months because of "the competitive, commercial atmosphere of the school, the condescending attitude toward women students". She then lived at home with her parents until 1954. Beginning in 1954, Rule taught at
Concord Academy in
Massachusetts where she met
Helen Sonthoff (September 11, 1916 - January 3, 2000), a fellow creative writing and literature teacher. The two fell in love, but at the time of their meeting, Sonthoff was married. Worried about politics and McCarthyism of the 50s in America, Rule moved with her friend and literary critic,
John Hulcoop, to
Vancouver, British Columbia in 1956. While there, she worked at the
University of British Columbia, as well as wrote her first novel. While living together, Rule and Hulcoop's relationship became romantic. However, that became complicated by the arrival of the woman Hulcoop would marry, as well as the arrival of Helen Sonthoff. Sonthoff was recently divorced and went to Vancouver for a vacation, which turned into a life-long relationship with Jane Rule. == Career ==