Born into a diplomatic family in Ottawa, Ontario, he was raised in Beirut, Havana, and Geneva. Following his graduation from St. John's Cathedral Boy's School he took a year off before college, accepting a modeling contract in Paris.

He enrolled at the University of Toronto in 1982 with the intention of becoming a writer. While there, he lived at Knox College and joined the Phi Delta Theta fraternity, serving as its chaplain. He studied fiction writing at Harvard in the summer of 1992.

He began his career as a sports journalist, with a series of profiles of Olympic athletes. Although his magazine work today remains focused on profiles, it has expanded far beyond sports, encompassing a variety of subjects and social issues.

His writing has appeared in a variety of publications in Canada and the United States, including The Advocate, The National Post, The Globe and Mail, The United Church Observer, The Next City, and The Harvard Gay and Lesbian Review and has been translated into German, Spanish and Japanese.

A member of PEN Canada, he is a past recipient of the Premier Award and the Vice Versa Award. In 1997 he became the first journalist to make the Canadian National Magazine Awards shortlist with a story published in a gay magazine.

His anthology Queer Fear 2 won the Lambda Literary Award, the Spectrum Award, the Queer Horror Award, and was a finalist for the International Horror Guild Award. His own short fiction is widely anthologized.

In 1985, Rowe married his partner, Brian McDermid (left in the picture), well in advance of Canada's 2003 legalization of gay marriages.

In June 2003, the couple were re-wed, this time legally, becoming the first gay couple in the history of the United Church of Canada to marry inside a United Church.

They live in a 135 year-old farmhouse on a tree lined street in a leafy Toronto neighborhood, where he is currently at work on a novel.