In gay culture, a bear is a larger and often hairier man who projects an image of rugged masculinity.
Simon Sheppard was a writer of gay erotica and a sex-advice columnist from San Francisco. He is the author of many books of gay sex writing, including Man on Man: The Best of Simon Sheppard, Sodomy!, Jockboys,Kinkorama: Dispatches From the Front Lines of Perversion,In Deep, and Sex Parties 101. He was also the editor of Homosex: 60 Years of Gay Erotica, winner of the 2007 Lambda Literary Award for LGBT erotica; the anthology Leathermen; and is the coeditor of the anthologies Rough Stuff and Roughed Up.
Blair Mastbaum is an American writer and a former model who lives in Brooklyn, New York.
Katherine V. Forrest is a Canadian-born American writer, best known for her novels about lesbian police detective Kate Delafield. Her books have won and been finalists for Lambda Literary Award twelve times, as well as other awards. She has been referred to by some "a founding mother of lesbian fiction writing."
Clay's Way is the debut novel of American writer Blair Mastbaum. Released in 2004 by Alyson Books, this contemporary novel, which won the Lambda Literary Award for LGBT Debut Fiction, follows 15-year-old gay skateboarder Sam and the object of his affection, conflicted surfer Clay around Honolulu.
Felice Picano is an American writer, publisher, and critic who has encouraged the development of gay literature in the United States. His work is documented in many sources.
Stacey D'Erasmo is an American author and literary critic.
Eaton Hamilton is a Canadian short story writer, novelist, essayist and poet, who goes by "Hamilton", 2021 legal name “Eaton Hamilton" and uses they/their pronouns.
Ali Liebegott is an American writer, actor, and comedian. She is best known for her work as a novelist and a writer/producer on the Amazon original series Transparent. Liebegott has taught creative writing at University of California, San Diego and Mills College. She is a recipient of a Poetry Fellowship from the New York Foundation for the Arts. She is the author of The Beautifully Worthless; The IHOP Papers; and Cha-Ching!. Liebegott resides in Los Angeles and recently finished her fourth book, The Summer of Dead Birds.
Elana Dykewomon was an American lesbian activist, author, editor, and teacher. She was a recipient of the Lambda Literary Award for Lesbian Fiction.
Toby Johnson is an American novelist and writer in the field of gay spirituality.
Michael Grumley was an American writer and artist.
Lucy Jane Bledsoe is a novelist who has received many awards for her fiction, including two National Science Foundation Artists & Writers Fellowships, a California Arts Council Fellowship, a Yaddo Fellowship, the American Library Association Stonewall Award, the Arts & Letters Fiction Prize, the Saturday Evening Post Fiction Award, the Sherwood Anderson Prize for Fiction, two Pushcart nominations, and the Devil's Kitchen Fiction Award. She is a six-time finalist for the Lambda Literary Award and a three-time finalist for the Ferro-Grumley Award.
Carol Anshaw is an American novelist and short story writer. Publishing Triangle named her debut novel, Aquamarine, one of "The Triangle's 100 Best" gay and lesbian novels of the 1990s. Four of her books have been finalists for the Lambda Literary Award for Lesbian Fiction, and Lucky in the Corner won the 2003 Ferro-Grumley Award.
The Ferro-Grumley Award is an annual literary award, presented by Publishing Triangle and the Ferro-Grumley Foundation to a book deemed the year's best work of LGBT fiction. The award is presented in memory of writers Robert Ferro and Michael Grumley. It was co-founded in 1988 by Stephen Greco who continues to direct it as of 2022.
Paul Russell is an American novelist, poet and short story writer. He is a two-time winner of the Ferro-Grumley Award for LGBT fiction, in 2000 for The Coming Storm and in 2012 for The Unreal Life of Sergey Nabokov. The Unreal Life of Sergey Nabokov is a fictionalized portrayal of a real person - Sergey Nabokov, the gay younger brother of Russian novelist Vladimir Nabokov, about whom very little concrete biographical information is known.
Allen Barnett was an American writer. Although he published only one volume of short stories, The Body and Its Dangers, during his lifetime, the book is widely regarded as one of the most artistically significant depictions of gay life at the height of the AIDS crisis.
Nina Revoyr is an American novelist and children's advocate, best known for her award-winning 2003 novel Southland. She is also executive vice president and chief operating officer of Children's Institute, Inc., which provides clinical, youth development, family support and early childhood services to children and families affected by trauma, violence and poverty in Central and South Los Angeles.
Michael Sledge is an American writer. His 2010 debut novel The More I Owe You, about the relationship between Elizabeth Bishop and Lota de Macedo Soares, won the Ferro-Grumley Award in 2011 and was a shortlisted nominee for the Lambda Literary Award in the Lesbian Debut Fiction category at the 23rd Lambda Literary Awards.
Julián Delgado Lopera is a queer Colombian writer and performer. They are the author of ¡Cuéntamelo! an illustrated collection of queer immigrant histories in the United States during the 1980s. They use creative expressions, such as writing, queer literary performance, and bilingual poetry to advance LGBT activism projects across the Bay Area. Delgado Lopera serves as the Executive/Artistic director for the nonprofit organization Radar Productions since 2015.
