Shawn Syms has written about culture, politics and sexuality for over twenty years. Born in 1970, he was raised in Niagara Falls, "the honeymoon capital of the world."Shawn has been a souvenir-store cashier, writer, proofreader, copy editor, layout artist, welfare recipient, Ponderosa Steak House™ salad-bar refresher, physical labourer in an oil refinery, on-air radio personality, model in an adult magazine, database administrator, customer-service representative for a telephone-dating service and a bookstore clerk, among many other pursuits.Shawn had his first taste of publication with a letter to the editor in the Niagara Falls Review in 1987, and began writing regularly for print media a year later. He was one of the publishers and editors of the internationally respected LGBT magazine Rites for four years, publisher of Pink Triangle Press's Canadian Male, and for many years co-wrote "Carnal Queeries," one of the earliest advice columns about gay sexuality and relationships. He was the inaugural recipient of the Bill 7 academic award and engaged in undergrad studies in sociology and women's studies, and later studied in the esteemed Ryerson publishing program.An Honours graduate of the Creative Writing program at the University of Toronto's School of Continuing Studies and an alumnus of the Humber School for Writers and the Summer Writers Colony of The New School, Shawn writes Free Agent, an occasional political-analysis column on sexuality, drug use and harm reduction for xtra.ca. He has completed a short-fiction collection and is at work on a novel.