Laura Antoniou authored the well known Marketplace series of erotic novels, She has also edited the groundbreaking Leatherwomen anthologies, and writes scholarly work on BDSM. Her work has been translated into Spanish, German, Hebrew, Japanese and Korean. She resides in New York, NY.

Ellis Avery The only writer ever to have won the American Library Association Stonewall Award for Fiction twice, Ellis Avery is the author of two novels and a memoir. Her novels, THE LAST NUDE (Riverhead 2012) and THE TEAHOUSE FIRE (Riverhead 2007) have also received Lambda, Ohioana, and Golden Crown awards, and her work has been translated into six languages. She teaches fiction writing at Columbia University and out of her home in the West Village.

Sally Bellerose is author of The Girls Club (Bywater Books) which won the Bywater Prize, the Rick Demarinis Award, the Writers at Work Award, an NEA Fellowship and was a Lammy finalist. An except from Bellerose’s current project, a novel titled Fishwives, won The Saints and Sinners Fiction Award and features old women behaving badly.

John Schuyler Bishop has had stories published in Sports Illustrated, The New York Times and in Alyson’s Best Gay Love Stories 2005. An unusual golf anthology he wrote a chunk of was published by St Martin’s, and two of his plays were produced off-off Broadway. He lives in Jacksonville Beach, FL.

Michael Carroll‘s first book, a collection of stories called Little Reef and Other Stories, is due from the University of Wisconsin Press June 16.  His work has appeared in a number of journals and quarterlies including The Yale Review, Open City, Southwest Review, Jonathan and Animal Shelter, among others, as well as a number of anthologies.  His collaboration with Edmund White, “Excavation,” was included in Joyce Carol Oates’s New Jersey Noir anthology, published by Akashic Books.  He lives in New York.
—Featured Reader—

Brian Centrone is the author of the debut novel An Ordinary Boy, which was an instant bestseller at Rainbow eBooks and TLA Books, and topped the Gay and Lesbian Literature category on Amazon. Brian’s latest release, Erotica, is a collection of his complete gay erotic short stories and features original artwork by Terry Blas, Alan Bennett, luke kurtis, and Rob Ordonez.

Elliott DeLine (born 1988) is an independent, self-published trans writer from Syracuse, NY. He is the author of Refuse, “a witty and provocative debut novel,” (Lambda Literary Review) which won a silver medal in the 2011 LGBT Rainbow Awards for Best Transgender/Bisexual Fiction. His work has been featured in several publications, including the Modern Love essay series of The New York Times (2011) and The Collection: Short Fiction from the Transgender Vanguard, winner of a 2012 Lambda Literary Award for Best Transgender Fiction. He is a regular blogger for Original Plumbing, the premier FTM magazine, and as of August 2013, the managing editor of Trans-Genre.net. Elliott’s newest book, I Know Very Well How I Got My Name, was praised by Kirkus Reviews as “one of the most well-written, nuanced transgender origin stories on the market today…a novella that confirms his impressive range and talent.”

Roberta Degnore is the author of twelve novels—from romance, murder, drugs to science fiction with a light-handed darkness.  Her latest book Invisible Soft Return:\ is a Finalist for the Lambda Literary Award.  Kirkus Reviews calls it “a cerebral work of feminist cyberpunk literature.” She is also an award winning screenwriter (Jack Nicholson prize), filmmaker and psychologist.  Always appreciating the wonders of public education—a graduate both of the CUNY Graduate Center and UCLA’s screenwriting program—she still haunts various universities, both teaching and learning.  She lives in New York city but travels widely.

Dominick Retired escort Dominick found his confessional voice at “Dean Johnson’s Reading for Filth.” A featured performer in the upcoming documentary Red Umbrella Diaries, his writing also appears in the Soft Skull anthology Johns, Marks, Tricks & Chickenhawks. His illustrated chapbook, Dominick Reading for Filth, is now available.

Jim Elledge’s Henry Darger, Throwaway Boy: The Tragic Life of an Outsider Artist is a finalist for the 2013 Lambda Literary Award, as is his Who’s Yer Daddy? Gay Writers Celebrate Their Mentors and Forerunners which he co-edited with David Groff. Lethe Press published his H, a collection of prose poems, in 2012. He lives in Atlanta.
—Featured Reader—

A.R. Fiano is the author of Gabriel’s World, a Mystery/Thriller multimedia fiction project.

Lisa Gitlin I’m the author of I Came Out For This?, my debut novel about a woman from Cleveland, Ohio, who comes out in her forties, falls madly in love for the first time, moves to Washington, DC to win the woman’s heart, and ends up having all kinds of crazy adventures in the nation’s capital. Independent Publishers awarded my book 2 first prizes, in the categories of LGBT fiction and Humor. It has just been released as an e-book by my publisher, Bywater Books. I am now hard at work on my second novel. I am deliriously excited to be moving from the DC metro area back to New York City on the weekend of the Rainbow Book Fair.

D. L. King publishes and edits the review site – Erotica Revealed (eroticarevealed.com). She most recently edited the bestselling The Sweetest Kiss: Ravishing Vampire Erotica, She is the author of two novels, The Melinoe Project and The Art of Melinoe. Her work can be found in anthologies such as The Mammoth Book of Best New Erotica, Best Women’s Erotica, Best Lesbian Erotica, Girl Crazy, Frenzy, Yes, Ma’am and Yes, Sir. Find her at dlkingerotica.com.

Ellery LaFavor was born and raised in a small southern town. As a former victim of child abuse and bullying he has taken those negative experiences and used them as inspiration for his creative endeavors. Currently he resides in Atlanta and is working on novels in the “Trapped” series.

Vinton McCabe, until now, has been best known as the author of ten books on subjects related to health and healing, and as an advocate for holistic healthcare.  Recently, he authored his first novel, Death in Venice, California, from which he will be reading today.  Vinton McCabe is also a literary critic who who reviews books of interest to the LGBT community for the New York Journal of Books.

Donna Minkowitz is the author of Growing up Golem: How I Survived My Mother, Brooklyn and Some Really Bad Dates, which has just been named a finalist for both a Lambda Literary Award and for the Publishing Triangle’s Judy Grahn Nonfiction Award. Hugo and Nebula Award winning writer Terry Bisson called the memoir “rich and wild, dark and funny, as fearless as her legendary journalism and as scary as a fairy tale.” Earlier, she won a Lambda Literary Award for her first memoir, Ferocious Romance. A columnist on queer politics and culture for the Village Voice for eight years, Minkowitz has also written for the New York Times Book Review, Salon, The Nation, Ms. and New York magazine. She is the winner of a GLAAD Media Award.—Featured Reader—

Cindy Rizzo has a long history of involvement in the LGBT community and has contributed to a number of anthologies.  In 1995, she co-edited a book of short fiction, called All The Ways Home: Stories of Lesbian and Gay Parenting, in which her story, “Herring Cove,” was included. Exception to the Rule, a contemporary, new adult, lesbian romance is her first novel. She is currently working on the second book in this series, tentatively titled First Comes Love.

Janet Rose, lesbian activist, educator and psychologist, came of age in the sixties. The younger was a fan of comic book superheroes, her introduction to science fiction. The older couldn’t get enough of Star Trek and Star Wars. She also gobbled up Asimov, Le Guin, Delany (among many others) and her favorite, Octavia Butler. From them she learned that science fiction is among the most versatile genres for political expression. She will be reading erotica from Beyond the Horse’s Eye—A Fantasy Out of Time (WordSpace Publications), her debut novel. Writing and Rewriting (Macmillan) came out of her work with SEEK students at CCNY. She lives with her partner in Jersey City and Manhattan.

Gillian Royes is a native of Jamaica and the author of The Shad Series, a series of mysteries featuring Shad, a Jamaican bartender, and published by Simon and Schuster’s Atria Imprint.  She currently lives between Atlanta and St. Croix, where she teaches journalism at the University of the Virgin Islands.

Mari SanGiovanni published her first book with Bywater Books after entering a writing contest back in 2007. Her first novel Greetings From Jamaica, Wish You Were Queer… Is a romantic comedy and was nominated for two LAMBDA awards, and was re-released in hard cover as a book club offering, as well as an ebook. Her second novel, Camptown Ladies, is a sequel to her first novel, and it was the winner of the Golden Crown award for Best Romance. Her stories follow an adventurous Italian family as they navigate their way, quite unconventionally, through life and love. In Mari’s real life, she is the Global Trend Manager for Home Goods, TJMaxx, and Marshalls, for the US and European markets…in other words, she shops for a living!

Dick Scanlan (in conversation with Sean Strub) most recently served as Script Consultant to the legendary Berry Gordy in connection with Motown The Musical.  He co-authored Everyday Rapture, a critically acclaimed musical written with and for Sherie Rene Scott, produced on Broadway at the American Airlines Theatre by The Roundabout Theatre Company, and Off-Broadway at Second Stage.  Mr. Scanlan received 2010 Tony, Drama Desk and Lortel nominations for his work on Rapture. He also wrote the book and lyrics for 2002’s Tony and Drama Desk Award Winning Best Musical, Thoroughly Modern Millie (music by Jeanine Tesori). Along with Ms. Tesori, Mr. Scanlan was commissioned by Sony to compose the song “The Girl in 14G” for Kristin Chenoweth’s debut album, Let Yourself Go. Current projects include bookwriter/additional lyricist for the new, wholly rewritten version of The Unsinkable Molly Brown, which will receive its world premiere at the Denver Center Theatre Company in September 2014, directed by Kathleen Marshall; and the libretto to Fallingwater, a new opera composed by Josh Schmidt, and commisioned by the world-renowned Metropolitan Opera. Mr. Scanlan began his writing career as a fiction writer. His novel, Does Freddy Dance, was published in 1995 to glowing reviews and was reissued in paperback in 1997, both by Alyson Publications. His short fiction has been seen in numerous literary journals and commercial magazines, and is included in the inaugural edition of Best American Gay Fiction (Little, Brown) along side such luminaries as Edmund White and Michael Cunningham.  He has published numerous articles and essays in The New York Times, The New Yorker, Vanity Fair, The Village Voice, Playboy and many other publications, and served as consulting editor at POZ, a national magazine for people living with HIV/AIDS.  In 2011, he formed artsINSIDEOUT, a not-for-profit organization that sends teams of American theatre artists to South Africa to work with children infected with or orphaned because of HIV/AIDS. Also a performer, Mr. Scanlan originated the role of Miss Great Plains in the hit Off-Broadway musical, Pageant.

Jill Shultz is the award-winning author of Angel on the Ropes, a science fiction novel with a Cirque du Soleil flair. An eco-geek through and through, she’s deeply committed to conservation, sustainability, and social justice.

Hilary Sloin began her writing career as a playwright in the 80s and was fortunate to have several plays widely produced in the U.S., most notably Lust & Pity and If You Left Me Nothing. When she left NYC, she switched her focus to short fiction and essay writing and soon after began work on Art on Fire, her first novel, learning about the form as she went and, as a result, taking nearly ten years to complete the book. It has garnered several awards, most recently the esteemed American Library Association’s Stonewall Book Award. She has just finished work on a manuscript of short stories entitled The Cure for Unhappiness (excerpts can be read at www.hilarysloin.com) and is in the earliest stages of a second novel, the working title of which is Pimpin’ the Frontier. Sloin’s fascination is always with what people do to each other—intentionally or, even more interesting, unintentionally. Her work is dark and funny, usually simultaneously, as her characters haplessly struggle with ambivalence about life.

Sean Strub is a writer and activist who founded POZ magazine, was the first openly-HIV positive person to run for the U.S. Congress, produced the hit play The Night Larry Kramer Kissed Me.  He is a native of Iowa City, Iowa, and lives with his partner, Xavier Morales, in Milford, Pennsylvania. He will be reading from his new memoir, Body Counts: A Memoir of Sex, Politics, AIDS and Survival.
—Featured Reader (in conversation with Dick Scanlan)—

Patrick Suraci SYBIL in her own words: The Untold Story of Shirley Mason, Her Multiple Personalities and Painting by patrick Suraci is about the person at the heart of one of the most controversial cases of Multiple Personality Disorder now known as Dissociative Identity Disorder. This book is about Sybil/Shirley Mason’s life after the original book and TV movie. 100 color paintings made by 5 of Sybil’s alternate personalities and other art work after her cure give a complete picture. Shirley enjoyed the second half of her life as a successful artist and caretaker of her former therapist, Dr. Wilbur, with whom she had a loving relationship until Dr. Wilbur died from a stroke.

Tim Teeman is Senior Culture Editor and a writer at The Daily Beast. Before that he was a journalist with The Times of London for fourteen years, where he was the paper’s Arts and Entertainment Editor and later its US Correspondent. He has written for many other publications, including The New York Times, The Financial Times, and The Observer. In Bed With Gore Vidal: Hustlers, Hollywood and The Private World of an American Master is his first book.—Featured Reader—

Edmund White has written some twenty-five books. He is perhaps best known for his biography of French writer Jean Genet, for which he won the National Book Critics Circle Award. He is also the author of a trilogy of autobiographical novels—A Boy’s Own Story, The Beautiful Room is Empty, and The Farewell Symphony. His novel, The Married Man, takes place in France, the United States and Morocco and deals with the intimate psychological repercussions of AIDS. He has written brief lives of Marcel Proust and Arthur Rimbaud and a book about unconventional Paris called The Flaneur. His most recent published works of fiction are Chaos and Hotel de Dream and Jack Holmes and His Friend and his latest non-fiction is City Boy, a memoir about New York in the 1970s. His memoir, Inside a Pearl: My Years in Paris, came out in 2014 He is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters and an officer in the French Order of Arts and Letters and a winner of the France-Amériques award. He teaches writing at Princeton and lives in New York City. —Featured Reader—