Meet the
Authors

He is a 2025 recipient of the Maryland State Arts Council’s Creativity Grant and received the Council's highest honor, the Individual Artist Award, for Theater (Solo Performance) in 2019. He was the GrandSLAM Champion of The Moth in D.C. in 2018 and has since traveled all over the country and overseas to tell stories with the organization. Branch was a 2014 Lambda Literary Nonfiction Emerging Voices Fellow and is the founder and Creative Director of Baltimore Story Fest, a showcase for live, personal storytelling. An alumnus of the American Film Institute, Branch has an MFA in Screenwriting. He earned his BA in Mass Media Arts at Hampton University and later returned as a professor in the English department to teach writing and develop the Film Studies program. Currently, Branch is a Resident Artist at the Howard County Center for the Arts in Maryland.

The press focuses on highlighting overlooked LGBTQ+ voices. As a lifelong LGBTQ+ activist, giving voice to the community furthers that activism. Ian is also the host of the podcast “Bold Voices/Good Yarns,” which delves into how authors’ lives influence their work. He lives in Cathedral City, California, with his husband of 38 years. At 71, he embraces the challenges of his "second life" with Rattling Good Yarns Press and its mission statement: to produce quality work and treat people right.

Between 1995 and 2002, Herndon charted 17 singles, including his three number ones and seventeen top 10 hits, such as “I Want My Goodbye Back,” “Loved Too Much,” “A Man Holding On,” and “Hands of a Working Man.” He topped the charts in 1996 with the single “Living in a Moment” and again in 1998 with “It Must Be Love.”

Ty began a triumphant comeback in 2020 with the release of “Orphans of God,” a duet with Kristin Chenoweth that peaked at number one on the iTunes charts. That was quickly followed by the release of JACOB and JACOB (Deluxe Edition), for the first time bringing his full journey from darkness to light and back again to his music. The album touched on highly personal themes ranging from addiction, recovery, and mental fitness to lost love, self-discovery and personal freedom. It spawned the country radio hits “Till You Get There” and “Dents on a Chevy,” a duet with Terri Clark that spent 7 weeks atop the independent country radio charts, becoming the number one independent country single of 2023.

In 2025, he released the first of a double album career retrospective entitled THIRTY, featuring guest collaborators on some of his biggest hits and fan favorites from more than three decades in the spotlight and on the charts. His memoir, “What Mattered Most,” was released March 31, 2026 by Dey Street Books.

With razor-sharp wit, quickfire ad-libs, and a wink that could light up any stage, Murray has spent decades turning every stage he steps on into his own personal variety show. He played the lovable Fred Rococo on HBO’s Somebody Somewhere, the Peabody-winning, AFI-honored comedy that also earned a Critics’ Choice LGBT+ Ensemble Award. He’s popped up everywhere from Life & Beth and Drag Me To Dinner (Hulu) to Elsbeth (CBS), Welcome to Flatch (FOX), and King of Drag (Revry). On the big screen, he starred in Paul Feig’s Jackpot! with John Cena and Awkwafina, and will share holiday cheer with Arnold Schwarzenegger in the upcoming movie Man With The Bag.

Murray’s talents extend beyond performance. He’s served as a guest correspondent for ABC News and Hulu’s Pride Across America, reporting live from the nation’s biggest Pride celebrations. NBC News named him one of the “30 Most Iconic and Influential Drag Performers in Modern History.” His debut memoir, Showbiz! My Life as a Middle-Aged Man will be published by Simon & Schuster’s Gallery Books October 6, 2026.

His work spans theater, television, and international touring, solidifying his reputation as a singular voice in comedy and a champion of inclusive, joy-driven performance. Murray Hill brings an old-school showbiz sensibility to a new generation, proving that quick wit, big heart, and a well-timed rimshot never go out of style. IG: @MurrayHill

He initially worked in Boston as a corporate/securities attorney, then left law to pursue life as a writer. After earning a masters degree at Vermont College of Fine Arts, he taught creative writing at The Cambridge Center for Adult Education where he pioneered a les-bi-gay writing workshop that ran for eight years. In 2001, his partner (and future husband), Leo Cabranes-Grant, accepted a university teaching position in Santa Barbara, so Daniel moved to California with him and taught for 20 years in the UCLA Extension Writers' Program.

Daniel's life experience led him to write his newest and tenth published book, Russian Silhouette: A Memoir of Activism and Identity. While at Princeton University in the 1970s, he concentrated in Russian Studies, volunteered as interpreter for newly arriving Soviet-Jewish immigrants, received a fellowship for language study in the USSR, and wrote an award-winning thesis about the Soviet Jewish emigration movement. Then, at Harvard Law School, Daniel studied Soviet law, translated and publicized Soviet dissident trial transcripts smuggled out to him, and chaired the International Affairs Division of the Harvard Jewish Law Students Association. He also engaged in domestic civil rights activism through the law school's Committee on Gay and Lesbian Legal Issues. Russian Silhouette explores how different aspects of Daniel’s life braided together, especially how his activism in support of endangered Soviet dissidents and oppressed Soviet Jews inspired him to come out as a gay man and work for his own civil rights in the US.

The bookstore’s slogan is Why Be Othered Elsewhere When You Can Be Centered Here. The store celebrates Queers, Women, People of Color and Bibliophiles.

Danielle is dedicated to community service, working and volunteering at a number of organizations. Since 2009, Danielle has served on the planning committee for Black Lesbians United (BLU), a volunteer led organization that hosts an annual retreat for over 200 Black queer women and non-binary folks. In 2022, she joined BLU’s Executive Committee.

Danielle also serves on the board of Riverside Pride as interim Vice President after three years of volunteer service with the organization.

When she is not working or volunteering, you can usually find her cuddled up on the couch with her wife Ruth, crocheting, reading, or watching Star Trek: Deep Space 9.

In 2026, the Los Angeles Times hailed There’s Only One Sin in Hollywood for “smoothly merging the true and the invented stories and characters of 1950s Hollywood” and described the novel as “imaginatively crafted, stunningly tense, [and] historically significant.” My Government Means to Kill Me was a Lambda Literary finalist for Gay Fiction and was named one of the “The 100 Notable Books of 2022” by The New York Times.

Rasheed is also a television drama writer, producer, and showrunner. He co-developed and was an executive producer of Bel-Air. Outside of writing, Rasheed is a co-chair of the board of directors for the One Institute, the oldest active LGBTQ+ organization in the country, dedicated to telling LGBTQ+ and HIV/AIDS history and stories through education, arts, and social justice programs. Currently, Rasheed lives with his husband and their two children in Pasadena.

He has accomplished 43 years in higher education as a Professor, Department Chair and Dean. He spearheaded the creation of the College of Arts at Montclair State University, served for two terms as the Secretary/Treasurer for the International Council of Fine Arts Deans and provided consultancies for numerous colleges and universities. He provided artistic direction for Wabash College, Kalamazoo College, Howard University, George Washington University, Montgomery College, University of Texas San Antonio, Denton Woman's University, New York University, and many others. He is widely traveled throughout the United States, Eastern and Western Europe, Canada, China, Australia, and New Zealand. He holds a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree from Howard University, a Master of Arts degree from Wayne State University, and a Ph.D. degree from Howard University. He is available for personal appearances, book readings and signings and conference presentations.

She wrote on the Star Wars series The Acolyte and the upcoming ITV series Majesty, and has developed shows for HBO and Amblin Entertainment. Her most recent script, Juliet, was recently named to the 2024 GLAAD List. She has been seen in The Mayfair Witches (AMC), Framing Agnes, Clarice (CBS), Mrs. Fletcher (HBO), Disclosure and Tales of the City (Netflix), Blind Spot (NBC), Better Things (FX), and Nashville (CMT). Jen was born in Mississippi, grew up in Chicago, and currently resides in Los Angeles with her wife and two dogs.

She holds an M.F.A from the University of Kentucky and was the recipient of the 2021 MFA Award for Best Nonfiction. Her essay “If You Ever Find Yourself” was published by Roxane Gay for The Audacity in 2021 and featured in the 2022 edition of Best American Essays, edited by Alexander Chee. Her debut memoir This is Your Mother was named a Best Memoir of 2025 (So Far) by BookPage and featured in Publisher’s Weekly, Poets & Writers, and The New Yorker. Simpson writes narratives that center black women and speculate on capitalism, race, class, mental illness and the importance of sisterhood.

She is the author of Race, Schools, and Hope: African Americans and School Choice after Brown (Teachers College Press, 2008) and LGBTQ Social Movements (Polity, 2018). She is the co-editor (with Eric Rofes) of The Emancipatory Promise of Charter Schools: Toward a Progressive Politics of School Choice (SUNY Press, 2004) and the co-editor (with Sharon Lawner Weinberg) of Diversity in American Higher Education: Toward a More Comprehensive Approach (Routledge, 2011). She is a frequent speaker and editorial writer on schooling, pop culture, and politics. She is also a devoted fan of television, an enthusiastic reader of fiction, and a strong advocate for institutional change in higher education through her work with NYU Steinhardt’s Womxn and Work Task Force, LGBTQ Working Group, and the Council for Action and Advocacy United for Social Justice and Equity (now called CAUSE). She currently is working on a book with Anthony S. Chen, of Northwestern University, on the origins of race-conscious affirmative action in college admissions. She received an A.B. from Harvard College, a Masters in Social Science (M.Soc.Sci.) in Cultural Studies from the University of Birmingham (in the U.K.), and a Ph.D. in Sociology from the University of California at Berkeley.