Barbara Leimsner was born in Recklinghausen, Germany and immigrated to Canada with her parents when she was three, growing up in Oshawa, Ontario. 

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Before turning her hand to non-fiction writing and her debut memoir Quitting the Master Race, in a career spanning three decades, she worked as a senior communications advisor specializing in corporate communications and executive speeches. As managing editor for award-winning employee publications, she has written numerous magazine and news stories and other materials. She has been a sought-after keynote speaker on creativity in communications at professional conferences throughout Canada and the U.S.

 

But those were her day jobs. Passionate about social justice issues since she joined the wave of late-1960s left student radicalism, Barbara has been a feminist and political activist in Ottawa around issues of racism, women’s and LGBTQ+ rights, and the environment and climate change.

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She was a founding member of the Pro-Choice Network in Ottawa, which successfully campaigned for the opening of an abortion clinic. In the 1980s as an anti-racist activist, she once talked her