Maureen Hynes

Hynes taught ESL, trained ESL/EFL teachers, and published ESL textbooks, founded and coordinated the School of Labour at George Brown College in Toronto, and for over eight years, was the college's multicultural/anti-racism coordinator.

[2] For her last four years at George Brown, she was part of a four-person team offering "Positive Space" workshops to bring visibility and support to lesbian, gay, bisexual, trans, two-spirit and queer/questioning students and staff.

She has also been an active member of the Ontario Public Service Employees Union, a board member of Mayworks, Toronto's annual Festival of Working People and the Arts, and of the Centre for Study of Education and Work (CSEW) at the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education.

Hynes, a lesbian,[2] served on the first jury for the Dayne Ogilvie Prize in 1998, a literary award for emerging LGBT writers in Canada, selecting Zoe Whittall as that year's winner.

Hynes's work has appeared in notable Canadian literary journals including The Malahat, The Fiddlehead, Arc, The Literary Review of Canada, Descant, Contemporary Verse 2, Prairie Fire, The Antigonish Review and Queen's Quarterly.