Queer Author Panel: Celebrating Pride 50

In celebration of the 50th anniversary of Santa Cruz Pride, we welcome three queer authors for an exciting panel discussion moderated by SCPL Library Director Christopher Platt. Each author's book will be for sale at the event. Light refreshments will be provided. Registration is recommended, but drop-ins are welcome. This event is part of Pride Thursdays.

Gar McVey-Russell lives in Oakland. Gar’s first novel, Sin Against the Race (gamr books, 2017) was listed on The Advocate’s Best Books We Read in 2018: LGBTQ Novels. His short stories, Tom of Boalt Hall and The Necklace were finalists in the Saints and Sinners LGBTQ Festival Fiction Open in 2020 and 2022, respectively. His fiction has also appeared in Sojourner: Black Gay Voices in the Age of AIDS (1993) and Harrington Gay Men’s Fiction Quarterly (vol. 7, Num. 3, 2005). He publishes a blog, the gar spot.

R.L. Merrill is from the San Francisco Bay Area. Whether she’s writing contemporary romance featuring quirky and relatable characters or diving deep into the paranormal and supernatural to give readers a shiver, R.L. Merrill loves creating compelling, diverse, and inclusive stories that will stay with readers long after. Winner of the Kathryn Hayes “When Sparks Fly” Best Contemporary award for Hurricane Reese, Paranormal Romance Guild’s Best Rockstar Romance for You Can Do Magic, and Daphne DuMaurier finalist for Connection, Ro spends every spare moment improving her writing craft and striving to find that perfect balance between real-life and happily ever after.

Liz Faraim lives in the East Bay. Liz has a full plate between balancing a day job, parenting, writing, and finding some semblance of a social life. In past lives she has been a soldier, a bartender, a shoe salesperson, an assistant museum curator, and even a driving instructor. She focuses her writing on strong, queer, female leads who don’t back down. Her recent book, Pinned, features Randy, a curmudgeonly blue-collar butch lesbian who has been single for twenty years. Randy battles between the joys of a new relationship and the struggles of witnessing her supervisor’s suspicious death in an industrial accident. As Randy seeks the truth, trust erodes, key friendships are strengthened, and more loss awaits her.