Page Title
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Attending Authors & Special Guests
2024 TBA
Darla Baker
Author
Darla Baker is the author of the Amazon best-selling novel Eagle Cove (Thalia Chase: Sex Therapist Series, Book One). Book Two in the series, Seventy Six Falls will be released on November 3, 2016.
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Life's twists and turns took Darla's passion for pursuing a career as a therapist and led her to spend the past thirty years practicing her therapy skills on unsuspecting software and systems engineers in various technology roles. Now as her career in technology comes to a close, you will find her counseling fictional clients as a fictional sex therapist in a world of her creation as the author of the Thalia Chase: Sex Therapist series.
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Darla lives with her wife of twenty years on the shores of beautiful Lake Cumberland, Kentucky during lake season and in Dayton, Ohio the rest of the year. Her adorable pit bulls, Raven and Delilah, are always by her side.
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http://stonesoupcommunity.com/
Brenda Trobaugh
Deputy Chief, Cal Poly Police Department
Deputy Chief Brenda Trobaugh holds a Masters Degree in Forensic Psychology (Summa Cum Laude) and has worked for 23 years in law enforcement. She has held assignments in patrol, field training, personnel, investigations, gangs, threat assessment, and management and tactical suppression. Trobaugh is a recognized national gang expert with 14 years of experience in the area of gangs. She was responsible for the largest gang rape sex slave case in the State of California where she received a Meritorious Service Award by the International Association of Asian Crime Investigators.
Deputy Chief Trobaugh is also a recognized expert in the areas of domestic violence and human trafficking. She has been an instructor of new officer orientation and advanced officer training (AOT) in the areas of domestic violence, gangs, and Miranda. She has been an instructor and a presenter
at Local, State and National Conferences in the areas of Gangs, Gang Rape, Human Trafficking, Miranda, School Violence, Domestic Violence, Violence as a Learned behavior, Violent Crime Behavioral Analysis, and Expert Testimony.
Deputy Chief Trobaugh received three proclamations from the City of Fresno and received the Fresno Police Department Outstanding Achievement Award. She was named as Fresno Police Officer of the year in 2008 and in 2009 she received the Marjoree Mason Center’s Top Ten Professional Women of the Year. The International Association of Chief of Police (IACP), California State Senate and United States Congress have recognized her for her work.
The California School Resource Officers Association and the Pat McCormick Educational Foundation have recognized her for her work in development and implementation of youth gang prevention programs. Deputy Chief Trobaugh served on the Domestic Violence Task Force and the Human Trafficking Task Force. She served as an Honor Guard member for 14 years and served as a board member of the Fresno County Peace Officer Memorial, Fresno County 9-11 Memorial Board and a member of the State of California Peace Officer Memorial Board.
She has been a Criminal Justice adjunct professor from 2009-to present and a guest lecturer at several college and universities. She has also competed in martial arts and track in field in both national and world competitions where she has won numerous medals.
Nat Burns
Author
Nat Burns is the author of more than fifteen novels with three different publishers. Since becoming a novelist, she has won one Golden Crown Literary Award and twice was voted a finalist. She also won an Alice B. Lavender Certificate for her novel Two Weeks in August. Her poem, “Womanwalk”, won first place in the local Virginia Writing Club contest and third place in the VWC state competition. Other poems have appeared in dozens of publications, such as Lynchburg Magazine, The Wishing Well, Muse Magazine, Witness to the Bizarre, and Worlds of Surrealism. She won state honors for a short story, “The Road, The Rock”, and was nominated for a Pushcart Prize for her short story “Diverse Delusions”.
During her ten years as a journalist, she won two Virginia Press Association awards, as well as honors from Writer's Digest, Muse Magazine, Writers in Virginia, The Virginia Writing Club, Piedmont Writing Institute and Writers of the Future. She taught journalism and creative writing as part of the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts Writers in Virginia program and worked with the Small Press Writers and Artist Organization for many years, serving one year as president. She currently writes a monthly column called “Notes from Nat” with a magazine in Los Angeles.
As an editor, Burns worked with the American Association for Clinical Chemistry, VA NOW, Byrd Newspapers, County of Nelson, Hampton Roads Publishing and Carden Jennings Publishing. In addition to many periodicals, she has edited more than three dozen fiction and non-fiction books, many of them winning awards.
Jennifer Fulton
Author / Editor
Jennifer Fulton is the award-winning author of 19 novels and recipient of the Alice B. Readers' Appreciation Award (2006). Published by Bold Strokes Books, she began writing mysteries under pen name Rose Beecham in 1992. Her first series was published by Naiad Press (USA) and Silver Moon (UK); her second series, featuring protagonist Jude Devine, includes GCLS Goldie award winner Grave Silence (2005).Jennifer’s romances span various sub-genres, from the very romantic Passion Bay (1992) and A Guarded Heart (2008), stories in the best-selling Moon Island series to romantic suspense with some Gothic spin: Dark Dreamer (2005), Dark Garden (2009); adventure romance: More than Paradise (2007), and a nod toward erotic romance: Naked Heart (2008). Writing as Grace Lennox, she anticipated the “new adult” trend with Chance (2006) and Not Single Enough (2007).Over the years, Jennifer has taught numerous classes and is proud to have mentored many authors as an editor. With her spouse Fel and their animal companions, she lives in Santa Fe, where she enjoys teasing guests by writing short
Shelley Thrasher
Author / Editor
performance pieces they must act as home dinner theater. Her 90-minute sell-out show Desperately Seeking Stimulation (1997) was the first lesbian stage comedy presented at the Melbourne Fringe Festival.
After a lengthy time-out to focus on her family, Jennifer picked up her pen again in 2015 and has two new novels forthcoming: Courting Trouble, set in Northern California, and Solace, the long-overdue fifth installment in the Moon Island series.
BL Clark
Author
BL Clark lives in Southern Wisconsin. As a child, BL dreamed of becoming an author, she is now living her dream. In her free time, you can find BL working on various story ideas, or playing with some form of technology.
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Isabella
Author
Award winning author, Isabella, lives in California with her wife and three sons. Isabella's first novel, Always Faithful, won a GCLS award in the Traditional Contemporary Romance category in 2010. She was also a finalist in the International Book Awards, and received an Honorable Mention in the 2010 and 2012 Rainbow Awards. She is a member of the Rainbow Romance Writers, Romance Writers of America, and the Gold Crown Literary Society.
She has written several short stories and just finished her next novel, Forever Faithful, out now. She is current working on the next in the American Yakuza series, American Yakuza III. You can also find Isabella's book at iTunes, Amazon, Barnes and Noble, Smashword, Kobo, Sony and All Romance Ebooks.
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Tara Wentz
Author
Tara Wentz is the author ofTraffic Stop. She was a GCLS Debut author finalist. Tara ives in Missouri with her partner. She has been in the medical field for many years and really does enjoy it. When not working or writing, Tara likes to spend her time reading, dabbling with photography, watching sports on TV or catching up on her favorite shows.
Annette Mori
Author
Annette is a health care executive living in the beautiful Pacific Northwest with her wife and their five furry kids. Well actually, it might be more than five, but they do not count the ones they only feed.
Love Forever, Live Forever is her debut novel that came out in April 2015 followed by Asset Management in August 2015. Her third novel Out of the World came out on Kindle Unlimited in November 2015 and Locked Inside was released in December 2015.
Fortunately, all four novels have received positive feedback and she is thankful to have the support of so many wonderful readers. Annette believes it is never too late to try something new and writing has quickly
turned into a rabid passion. She loves to hear feedback from readers so drop her a line at:
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https://annettemori0859.wordpress.com/
Darla Baker
Author/Publisher
Darla Baker is the author of the Amazon best-selling novel Eagle Cove (Thalia Chase: Sex Therapist Series, Book One). Book Two in the series, Seventy Six Falls will be released on November 3, 2016.
​
Life's twists and turns took Darla's passion for pursuing a career as a therapist and led her to spend the past thirty years practicing her therapy skills on unsuspecting software and systems engineers in various technology roles. Now as her career in technology comes to a close, you will find her counseling fictional clients as a fictional sex therapist in a world of her creation as the author of the Thalia Chase: Sex Therapist series.
​
Darla lives with her wife of twenty years on the shores of beautiful Lake Cumberland, Kentucky during lake season and in Dayton, Ohio the rest of the year. Her adorable pit bulls, Raven and Delilah, are always by her side.
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http://stonesoupcommunity.com/
Jane Alden’s debut novel, Across a Crowded Room, was released by Desert Palm Press in May. The author was born and raised in a small Mississippi River Delta community in Arkansas. Everyone in town knew everyone else, their parents, and their grandparents before them.
After graduating from the University of Arkansas, she moved to California and taught 7th grade English in a small central valley citrus-farming community. When she was recruited on the phone at U of A, she looked up Porterville, California, on the map, and it was only about an inch and a half north of Los Angeles, but it turned out the culture was closer to Arkansas or Oklahoma than to the bright lights and big city she craved. After two years teaching, she moved to Los Angeles, began a career in health care management. After many lucky circumstances and thanks to wonderful mentors, she became a hospital administrator and then an executive coach, working with successful executives who want to be better leaders.
Jane and her partner of thirty years live in a small town thirty miles east of metropolitan Los Angeles. Their chocolate lab, Delilah, is the captain of the domestic ship.
Find Across a Crowded Room at Amazon, Bella Books, Smashwords, Barnes and Noble and other outlets.
Jane Alden
Author
Isabella
Author/Publisher
Award winning author, Isabella, lives in California with her wife and three sons. Isabella's first novel, Always Faithful, won a GCLS award in the Traditional Contemporary Romance category in 2010. She was also a finalist in the International Book Awards, and received an Honorable Mention in the 2010 and 2012 Rainbow Awards. She is a member of the Rainbow Romance Writers, Romance Writers of America, and the Gold Crown Literary Society.
She has written several short stories and just finished her next novel, Forever Faithful, out now. She is current working on the next in the American Yakuza series, American Yakuza III. You can also find Isabella's book at iTunes, Amazon, Barnes and Noble, Smashword, Kobo, Sony and All Romance Ebooks.
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Jazzy Mitchell
Publisher / Author
Jodi Zeramby (pen name Jazzy Mitchell) stepped into the role of publisher of Launch Point Press (LPP) in January 2023. In many ways, each skill Jodi has mastered has contributed toward becoming a publisher. She graduated from Boston University, earning two degrees simultaneously —English and Education—with honors. While teaching high school English, Jodi attended Suffolk University Law School at night and worked at a law firm. After moving from Massachusetts, she was an escrow officer for a dozen years and taught real estate law to real estate professionals.
Since then she has interviewed authors across the lesfic community and championed writers to support and lift up others. She is currently the executive board vice president for OPUS Literary Alliance, a non-profit organization which focuses on advancing literary and educational opportunities for members, preserve their legacies, and to celebrate, promote, and support lesbian, women loving women, an sapphic literature.
Launch Point Press produces books by, for, and about lesbian issues, culture, and circumstances. Jodi is excited to advocate, support, and attract talented writers who seek to publish stories that expand their readers’ perspectives.
Lee Fitzsimmons
Publisher, Desert Palm Press
Think about it. It’s 2014 you’re getting ready to retire, your hobbies have run their course and the only thing you really like to do in your spare time is read, do a bit of beta reading, and editing. And the books you like aren’t always out there. What do you do? If you’re Lee Fitzsimmons you start a publishing house (of course) in order to further fill the pages of your life with women’s voices. You start small, a couple of authors. Then another and another and 8 years into the venture there are 32 authors, eighty-eight+ books published, and you are knee deep in romances, sci/fi, cowgirls, horror, space pirates, adventures and memoir.
Desert Palm Press is a wonderful adventure and will continue to publish women’s stories bringing to the page their vital voices which embrace and impact our community.
Sam Ledel
Author
Sam Ledel grew up in the sprawling DFW Metroplex of Texas. After graduating with her B.A. in Creative Writing, she found a calling in education and has worked in the field for more than a decade, including during her time in Peru serving in the Peace Corps.
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Her debut novel, Rocks and Stars, was a Golden Crown Literary Society finalist for Young Adult fiction. Wildflower Words, a historical romance, was a 2023 LGBTQ+ finalist in the Next Generation Indie Book Awards. She is the author of eight novels with Bold Strokes Books.
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Ledel enjoys being able to write in her free time, usually with a cup of coffee in hand, and her Jack Russell Terrier snuggled close by. She currently resides in Denver and is working on her next novel.
McGee Mathews
Author
McGee Mathews won the 2019 Lesfic Bard Awards for excellence in writing and storytelling in the category of New Author for her novel Moving Violations. Her second book Exceeding Expectations, part of the Ladies of Diamond Lake series, was also self-published before she signed with Sapphire Books.
She is a member of the Golden Crown Literary Society, Rainbow Romance Writers and, formerly, the Romance Writers of America.
McGee finds inspiration for her historical characters in her lifelong hobby of genealogy. She comes from a long line of potato farmers and Quakers. Four hundred years ago, her wife’s ancestors owned the fiefdom McGee’s family worked on in northern England. This annoys her to no end. She maintains that she is not a chihuahua and families, not bloodlines, are the most important. For her contemporary works, she is drawn to blue-collar gals with sass, often tapping into her experiences playing bass guitar in a rock band for twenty years.
An Army brat, McGee was predominantly raised in Garden City, Michigan. A Jill of all trades, master of none, McGee has a B.S. in biology from Western Michigan University and has worked in numerous, underpaid, overworked positions including automotive engineering, facilities maintenance, and teaching chemistry. She currently writes full time.
McGee and her wife of over 26 years raised three children on a farm in South Carolina. She has retired from chasing goats but still enjoys rural life. She counts the days until her wife can retire so they can begin their travels as RV nomads.
DA Hartman
Author
Day, aka D.A. Hartman, is a non-award-winning author who writes about beautifully flawed sapphic characters. Being hyperactive with extreme dyslexia, Day avoided reading and writing at all costs. She dropped out of the eighth grade and fled to the unjudgmental streets of Hollywood California at fourteen where she quickly escaped the world of words with the help of drugs and alcohol. At the age of thirty, after driving a stolen vehicle into the Colorado River, she woke up in a hospital begging for change, no, not money, a change in attitude about her evil nemesis, words. Now Day embraces her mispronunciation and stumbling over words and writes lesbian romance with a twist of her past and a smile.
Ali Spooner
Author
Ali Spooner, a native of Florida, currently living in Pensacola. As an “Indie” author, Ali has been writing for many years as a hobby, and with the assistance of the Affinity team, has taken her love of storytelling to a new level.
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Ali’s characters range from cowgirls and psychics, to a healthy dose of supernatural beings. She has written stand-alone titles and series. Ali is an avid reader and her other hobbies include photography, outdoor activities and watching college sports.
Lori Lake
Author
Lori L. Lake is the author of two short story collections and four novels in The Gun Series, two books in The Public Eye Mystery Series, and five novels of drama and romance. She’s edited four anthologies, including Lesbians on the Loose: Crime Writers on the Lam with Jessie Chandler, which won a Goldie Award. Her mystery stories are featured in over a dozen anthologies including: The Silence of the Loons; Once Upon a Crime; Dark Side of the Loon; and Women of the Mean Streets. Lori facilitates the Portland Lesbian Writers Group and is known for sharing writing craft resources. She is especially fond of teaching about crime fiction and the craft of novel creation. In her spare time, she administers the Alice B. Reader Appreciation Awards. Lori lives in Portland, Oregon, at the Fortress of Solitude where she spends time reading, writing, editing, playing guitar, adoring pop and oldies music, coloring and creating graphics, and enjoying the exploits of a multitude of nieces and nephews. You can find out more about her at: http://www.LoriLLake.com or at her Wikipedia page.
JB Marsden
Author
JB "Joey" Marsden wrote her first short story at age ten, but, needing to make a living, spent many years producing academic tomes that no one enjoyed reading. Now, having published novels, she has realized her childhood dream.
JB lives on her family farm in the beautiful Mississippi River valley of western Illinois, where she grew up. Before that, she lived in urban areas in upstate New York, Michigan, and Kentucky. Her wife and sisters surround her with loving support and compete with her in rousing card games. Aside from writing, Joey enjoys reading, photography, outdoor sports and activities, and classic movies. Even though she can be found most often in the quiet of rural living, she travels for work and fun both in the U.S. and abroad.
Joey is a member of the Golden Crown Literary Society and Romance Writers of America.
Reba Birmingham
Author
Reba Birmingham writes the Hercynian Forest Series, which follows the journey of Panda and Mitzi Fowler, a married lesbian couple. They live a fairly quiet life in Southern California until their world is upended by Mitzi's discovery of her true heritage. Reba is writing Book Five, due out in December--Her genre is best described as action-packed slipstream. In a parallel world, she and her wife have a law practice in Long Beach, California, and both were honored by their city on its Harvey Milk Wall for service to the LGBTQ community.
Terri Furuya
Author
A native Californian, Teruko Furuya lives in Los Angeles and works as a Business
Analyst. She has been published in two volumes of the Clexacon Anthology Series
"Fandom to Fantasy", published by Sapphire Books. Her hand-sewn book arts
project titled “Shikataganai,” a story of her family’s experience in the
Manzanar Internment Camp, has shown in over 20 gallery shows. Copies have been
donated to the Japanese National American Museum and the Library of Congress.
Her latest project, a queer gothic romance based in Ireland will be her first
full-length work. She writes fanfiction and has published over 800,000 thousand
words and over 50 works on Archive Of Our Own.
Kate Rupley
Author
Katherine Rupley is the author of two novels published by Bella Books: Calculated Risk, a romance, and Antarctica, a suspense thriller. She is currently working on book 2 of her new fantasy series, Tales from Lurra. She is an avid reader, runner, traveler, photographer, and fur friend.
EJ Kindred
Author
EJ Kindred is a retired Oregon attorney who is delighted to have substituted writing mysteries for writing contracts. She’s always loved to write, and in her youth spent more time than she’ll admit writing terrible “Star Trek” scripts and even worse wild horse stories. In Harm’s Way (2019) was her first published novel and the first book in the Annie Velasquez mystery series. Its sequel, Family Secrets, was released in April 2024. EJ recently finished the first draft of the third instalment in the series, currently titled Aftermath. She has put it aside to let it ferment while she works on other projects. For instance, she decided to write a standalone novel, tentatively titled Getaway, but so far, that book is only some disorganized notes and random thoughts. It's as good a place to start as any.
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Before In Harm's Way was published, EJ's short story “The Other Marie” appeared in Time’s Rainbow: Writing Ourselves Back into American History (2017). The “other Marie” was Marie Equi, one of Oregon’s first women doctors, a crusader for humane working conditions, an anti-war activist who served time in San Quentin for sedition, and an unabashed lesbian at the turn of the 20th century.
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When she’s not writing, EJ spends time with friends and takes care of her six cats, who take care of her in return. In addition, EJ likes to make quilts, some of which she donates to local animal rescue groups for fundraising. She has to, because she's already loaded up her friends and family with more quilts than they could possibly use. Her quilt UFO (unfinished object) pile is almost as big as her TBR (to be read) list. She also loves to travel. She's visiting Italy and Croatia in July 2025 and taking a cruise to Alaska in early 2026. Past trips include the Galapagos Islands, Iceland, Japan, and several trips to Europe. She hasn't made it to Australia or New Zealand yet. Yet.
EJ's website is www.ejkindred.com.
Kayt C. Peck lived the ranch life as a child and young adult and knows the smell, feel, hardships and gratifications of life on the range. The hard-work and determination needed to survive on a Texas farm and ranch helped her as she began a life-long career as a writer that has included working as a journalist, a public-affairs officer in the U.S. Naval Reserve, and as a grants expert writing applications raising over $30 million for worthy domestic and even international organizations.
She has published seven novels, one biography, and written many plays, including being a two-time awardee in the Rocky Mountain Voices play competition and the recipient of a special award for Excellence in Play Writing from the Region VI ACTFest. Her screenplay, “Choke Cherry Jelly,” has won numerous awards at film festivals and is currently under consideration for production. She authored and published numerous articles, short stories and poems, including serving as the inaugural poet Laureate for the City of Las Vegas, NM.
As one of hundreds who lost her home in the Hermit’s Peak/Calf Canyon Fire in New Mexico, she is currently serving her community as a regular columnist for the Las Vegas Optic and a contributor to the state-wide news service, Source New Mexico.
Kayt Peck
Author
Akemy Ortiz
Author
Akemy “Curly” Ortiz is a writer living in La Crescenta, CA with her wife and high school sweetheart of 25 years.
Her work seeks to answer the question, “Happily Ever After, Now What?” While the heat is there, it’s also full of fun family moments and love.
Starting as a writer for theater, her work is full of entertaining interactions and heartfelt love confessions. With a humor that borders on immature at times, she loves to involve a family dynamic in her writing.
Jane Cuthbertson
Author
Born and raised in Texas, Jane Cuthbertson moved to Colorado in 1989 and spent the next 25 years as an air traffic controller, telling pilots where to go. She currently lives on an island in the Pacific Northwest and loves it. She has driven through most of the U.S. and Canada (but not all, not yet!), traveled to four continents, and is drawn to quiet, out of the way places. If no one else is there, all the better. If history happened there, even better still. Unless she is at a women’s soccer match, crowds are not her thing. A shameless introvert, she adores her three childless cats, and has taken fewer selfies than any other living person on the planet. Her debut novel, “Game Changers,” was a two-time Golden Crown Literary Award Winner in 2020.