Meet the Authors
We are from all parts of the San Francisco Bay Area, and beyond!
M.D. Neu
Founder of BAQWA
Author of science fiction and paranormal/urban fantasy.
M.D. Neu is an award-winning queer fiction writer with a love for writing and travel. Living in the heart of Silicon Valley (San Jose, California) and growing up around technology, he’s always been fascinated with what could be.
Specifically drawn to Science Fiction and Paranormal television and novels, M.D. Neu was inspired by the great Gene Roddenberry, George Lucas, Stephen King, Alice Walker, Alfred Hitchcock, Harvey Fierstein, Anne Rice, and Kim Stanley Robinson. An odd combination, but one that has influenced his writing.
Growing up in an accepting family as a gay man he always wondered why there were never stories reflecting who he was. Constantly surrounded by characters that only reflected heterosexual society, M.D. Neu decided he wanted to change that. So, he took to writing, wanting to tell good stories that reflected our diverse world.
When M.D. Neu isn’t writing, he works for a non-profit and travels with his biggest supporter and his harshest critic, Eric his husband of twenty plus years.
Email: info@mdneu.com
Michael Alenyikov
SF Bay Area
Michael Alenyikov’s short stories have appeared in Canada’s Descant (nominated for a 2007 Pushcart); The Georgia Review; New York Stories; Modern Words, The James White Review, and have been anthologized in Best Gay Stories, 2008 and Tartts Four: Incisive Fiction From Emerging Writers. His essays have appeared in The Gay & Lesbian Review. He was a MacDowell Fellow. Raised in New York City, Alenyikov has worked as a bookstore clerk, clinical psychologist, cab driver, and interactive media writer. He lives in San Francisco.
J. Scott Coatsworth
Sacramento region
Scott writes stories that subvert expectations, that seek to transform traditional sci fi, fantasy, and contemporary worlds into something new and unexpected. He lives in the Sacramento valley and is a member of the LGBTQ Sacramento Writers.
Baz Collins
SF Bay Area
Baz is a Latinx/Native American author writing about queer lives. Hailing from the San Francisco Bay Area, he lives with his husband, and a Somali cat named Zorro. A classically trained singer/actor (under a different name), Baz knows a good yarn when he sees it.
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Based on years of his work as an actor, Baz specializes in character study pieces. It is more important for him that the reader comes away with a greater understanding of the characters and the reasons they make the decisions they do, rather than the situations they are in.
It is this deep dive into their manners, their experiences and how they process the world around them that make up the body of Mr. Collins’ work. He is also a co-host of the wrotepodcast.com series.
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Email: sacollins@sacollins.com
Liz Faraim
SF Bay Area
Liz Faraim is a recovering workaholic who has mastered multi-tasking, including balancing a day job, solo 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. Liz writes contemporary fiction that highlights queer characters and often includes complex polyamorous relationships.
Her writing has a hefty dose of soul searching and emotional turmoil while also taking the reader on fun adventures. She loves spending time in nature and does her best to share nature with her readers.
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Wayne Goodman
SF Bay Area
Wayne Goodman has lived in the San Francisco Bay Area most of his life (with too many cats). Goodman hosts Queer Words Podcast, conversations with queer-identified authors about their works and lives. When not writing or recording, he enjoys playing Gilded Age parlor music on the piano, with an emphasis on women, gay, and Black composers.
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Richard May
SF Bay Area
Richard May’s short fiction has been published in his collections Gay All Year, Inhuman Beings, and Ginger Snaps: Photos & Stories (with photographer David Sweet) and in numerous anthologies and literary journals. He organizes two monthly reading series, Odd Mondays and Perfectly Queer. May earned his Bachelors from the University of the Pacific and Masters in English at the University of Southern California. He lives in San Francisco.
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Gar McVey-Russell
SF Bay Area
Gar McVey-Russell began writing early in life, but thought he wanted to be an astronomer. (He also thought he was straight. Go figure.)
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At UCLA, he co-created a left-leaning paper called Free Association. He also wrote commentaries for The Daily Bruin and feature articles for the LGBTQ newsmagazine Ten Percent, for which he received an award.
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Gar began fiction writing in the early 90s. His work has appeared in Sojourner: Black Gay Voices in the Age of AIDS (1993), and other publications. His short story, Tom of Boalt Hall, was a finalist in the Saints and Sinners LGBTQ Festival Fiction Open and appears in their 2020 anthology.
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Sin Against the Race (2017) is his first novel.
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Gar is married and lives in Oakland. And while he does not study the stars professionally, he does own a telescope and is an avid fan of Doctor Who and Star Trek.
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Vincent Meis
SF Bay Area
Vincent Traughber Meis grew up in Decatur, Illinois and graduated from Tulane University in New Orleans. He has also traveled extensively, and as result of his travels and time abroad he published a number of pieces, mostly travel articles, but also a few poems and book reviews, in publications such as, The Advocate, LA Weekly, In Style, and Our World in the 1980s and 90s. He has published five novels with Fallen Bros Press: Eddie’s Desert Rose (2011), Tio Jorge (2012), and Down in Cuba (2013), Deluge (2016) and Four Calling Burds (2019).
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Tio Jorge received a Rainbow Award in the category of Bisexual Fiction in 2012.Down in Cuba received two Rainbow Awards in 2013. Deluge won a Rainbow Award in 2016. His sixth novel The Mayor of Oak Street was released in June 2021 with NineStar Press. A book of his short stories will be published by NineStar in September 2021. His stories have been published in several collections, including WITH: New Gay Fiction, and other collections. He lives in San Leandro, California.
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R.L. Merrill
SF Bay Area
R.L. Merrill brings you stories of Hope, Love, and Rock 'n' Roll featuring quirky and relatable characters. Whether she’s writing contemporary, paranormal, or supernatural, she loves to give readers a shiver with compelling stories that will stay with you long after. You can find her connecting with readers on social media, advocating for America’s youth, raising two brilliant teenagers, writing horror-infused music reviews for HorrorAddicts.net, trying desperately to get that back piece finished in the tattoo chair, or headbanging at a rock show near her home in the San Francisco Bay Area! Stay Tuned for more Rock 'n' Romance.
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Kelliane Parker
SF Bay Area
I am a Bay Area poet with my first chapbook, Down the Foggy Streets of My Mind, coming out from Nomadic Press. I have poems previously published in various anthologies such as, Colossus:Home.
I love attending and featuring at poetry readings, art showings and all things creative!
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https://www.goodreads.com/user/show/113910103-kelliane-parker
Kari Trenten
SF Bay Area
Kari lives in the South Bay with two demanding cats, a long suffering husband, and a host of characters living in my head that won’t shut up.
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