Queer, non-monogamous writer Cooper S. Beckett began his writing career as a podcaster as host of Life on the Swingset: The Podcast and a speaker in the sexuality education community. He wrote My Life on the Swingset, a memoir of his first five years in non-monogamy, then followed that up with two novels, A Life Less Monogamous and Approaching the Swingularity. He lives in Chicago with Elle, his wife, constant, and binary star; Egon, their ghost terrier; and their black cat, Willow.
He co-authored The Pegging Book: A Complete Guide to Anal Sex with a Strap-On Dildo with Lyndzi Miller.
is a Toronto-based writer/director, advocate and academic. Her work primarily focuses on her identity as a black woman, an exploration of her own experiences of trauma and love, and a deliberate experimentation of the intersection of white supremacy and black identity.
Alicia’s memoir, No Filter: Diary of a Polyamorous Black Girl, will be published by Thornapple Press in 2024.
David Cooley is a professional restorative justice facilitator, diversity and privilege awareness trainer, and bilingual cultural broker. He is the creator of the Restorative Relationships Conversations model, a process that transforms interpersonal conflict into deeper connection, intimacy and repair. In his private practice, David specializes in working with nonmonogamous and LGBTQ partnerships, incorporating a variety of modalities including trauma-informed care, attachment theory, somatic practices, narrative theory and mindfulness-based techniques.
With Jessica Fern, he is the co-author of Polywise: A Deeper Dive into Navigating Open Relationships, which will be released in 2023.
Christopher Dale is an experienced public relations professional, writer and recovering addict. He has been published in a wide range of prominent outlets, including Daily Beast, Salon, Parents.com, Dogster, NY Daily News and Tribune Syndicate. He writes on a wide range of topics, including addiction, mental health, politics, parenting, travel and rescue dog advocacy.
His first book, Better Halves: Rebuilding a Post-Addiction Marriage, explores his unlikely recovery from drug addiction, and even less likely recovery of a happy, healthy marriage.
Jessica Fern is a psychotherapist, public speaker, and trauma and relationship expert. In her international private practice, Jessica works with individuals, couples and people in multiple-partner relationships who no longer want to be limited by their reactive patterns, cultural conditioning, insecure attachment styles and past traumas, helping them to embody new possibilities in life and love.
Her first book, Polysecure: Attachment, Trauma and Consensual Nonmonogamy, was published by Thorntree Press in October 2020, and The Polysecure Workbook: Healing Your Attachment and Creating Security in Loving Relationships was released in November 2022. Jessica has just completed Polywise: A Deeper Dive into Navigating Open Relationships, which will be released in 2023.
Angelic Goldsky (they/them) is a spoken word poet, queer and trans nurturance culture builder and transformative educator. They have shared on the poetics of queer community building, self-recognition during intimacy, and transgender futurity at University for Peace (UPEACE) in Costa Rica, X University and many grassroots homes. As an artist, they have curated Queer Homelands at the Museum of Anthropology, Every Kind of Love at the Chan Centre, and the UBC LGBTQQ2SIA+ Pride Festival, always envisioning the capacity for a creative space that is equally vulnerable as it is jubilant. They are the co-founder of the Transgender Expressions Haven, an ever-evolving collective of trans media artists, musicians and poets with a commitment to the creative power beyond all binaries. They hold a MA in Arts Politics from New York University as well as a Bachelor of Media Studies from the University of British Columbia.
Angelic is co-writing Beyond Consent with Anahita Monafred, which will be published by Thornapple Press in 2024.
Alyssa Gonzalez is a biology Ph.D., public speaker and writer. She writes extensively about biology, history, sociology and her experiences as an autistic ex-Catholic Hispanic transgender immigrant to Canada at her blog, The Perfumed Void. She also writes speculative fiction that explores social isolation, autism, gender, trauma and the relationships among all of these things. She lives in Ottawa, Canada with a menagerie of pets.
Alyssa’s first book, Nonmonogamy and Neurodiversity, will be published by Thornapple Press in February 2023.
Kate Harrad co-edited The Ladies’ Loos: From Plumbing to Plucking, a Practical Guide for Girls (The Friday Project, 2006), and her novel, All Lies and Jest, was published by Ghostwoods Books in 2011. She has over a decade of experience working in business editorial/writing positions, and has written for the Guardian, the F-Word and Huffington Post. She has also been a bi activist for several years, and has co-organized numerous UK bi events.
Kate’s anthology Purple Prose: Bisexuality in Britain was published by Thorntree Press in 2016, then adapted to a North American audience and published as Claiming the B in LGBT in October 2018.
Rebecca Hiles is a dating, relationships and sexual wellness coach. She blogs as The Frisky Fairy, has contributed to Sexpert.com and xoJane, and has had her writing featured on Everyday Feminism. She was voted one of the Top 100 Sex Blogging Superheroes of 2014 and 2015.
Rebecca co-authored It’s Called “Polyamory”: Coming Out About Your Nonmonogamous Relationships, published by Thorntree Press in October 2017.
Carrie Jenkins is a professor of philosophy at the University of British Columbia and the author of What Love Is (and What it Could Be) and Sad Love: Romance and the Search for Meaning. She holds a PhD in philosophy from Trinity College, Cambridge, and an MFA in creative writing from UBC. She has been featured in The Atlantic, the New York Times, the Globe and Mail and the Telegraph, among others.
Nonmonogamy and Happiness will be published by Thornapple Press in 2023.
Kay Kassirer (they/them) is a poet, activist, youth advocate, community organizer, and sex worker currently residing on the unceded lands of the Musqueam, Squamish, and Tsleil-Waututh First Nations—colonially known as Vancouver. They have toured internationally with the chapbooks Confessions of a Queer and Unbandage the Wounds, and has earned their place on several competitive final stages—notably the Capturing Fire International Queer Slam (2016), the Canadian Individual Poetry Slam (2016, 2017, 2019), and the Canadian Festival of Spoken Word, where they placed third nationally (2018).
Kay’s anthology, A Whore’s Manifesto was published by Thorntree Press in October 2019.
Kathy Labriola is a counselor and nurse in private practice in Berkeley, California. She is the author of The Jealousy Workbook and Love in Abundance and has years of professional experience working with polyamorous singles, couples, and groupings on relationship dynamics.
The Polyamory Breakup Book was published by Thorntree Press in October 2019.
Mx. Nillin Lore (they/them) is a queer, nonbinary, polyamorous and autistic author and editor out of Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, Canada. They are a multiple-award-winning sex blogger who earned first place in the Top 100 Sex Blogs of 2021. Nillin contributed to the Big Book of Orgasms: Volume 2, as well as Best Lesbian Erotica of the Year, volumes 4, 5 and 6, from Cleis Press. They were also a chapter coauthor in the second edition of Trans Bodies, Trans Selves, from Oxford University Press (2022), and the editor of Heckin’ Lewd: Trans and Nonbinary Erotica, from Bold Strokes Books.
They are working on How Do I Sexy? A Guide For Trans Queers, which will be released by Thornapple Press in 2024.
Lyndzi Miller has been a sexual educator at The Tool Shed: An Erotic Boutique since 2012, and is its current assistant manager. She established the Milwaukee Poly Group in 2008, facilitating discussion and support group meetings every month since. She also hosts the bi-weekly podcast Polyamory Uncensored, on which she interviews ethically non-monogamous folks on their polyamorous journeys. She is an avid knitter, a mother, a burlesque dancer, and a huge geek.
She co-authored The Pegging Book: A Complete Guide to Anal Sex with a Strap-On Dildo with Cooper S. Beckett.
Pepper Mint is an activist, educator and community organizer in the polyamory and BDSM communities in San Francisco.
Pepper’s first book, Playing Fair: A Guide to Nonmonogamy for Men into Women, was published by Thorntree Press in October 2017.
Anahita Monfared (they/she/he) is an Iranian and (gender)/queer actor, writer and spoken word poet with multidisciplinary curiosities based on the unceded lands of the Musqueam, Squamish and Tsleil-Waututh First Nations colonially known as Vancouver. A mental health and consent advocate, their work explores and centers intersectional feminism, MAD Pride, gender fuckery and sexual liberation. They are currently studying Theater and Psychology at New York University.
Anahita is co-writing Beyond Consent with Angelic Goldsky, which will be published by Thornapple Press in 2024.
JoEllen Notte is a writer, speaker, and mental health advocate whose work explores the impact of depression on sex and relationships. Since 2012 she has written about sex, mental health, and how none of us are broken on her award-winning site The Redhead Bedhead, as well as for Glamour, the BBC, Bitch, PsychCentral and more.
JoEllen’s first book, The Monster Under the Bed: Sex, Depression, and the Conversations We Aren’t Having, was published by Thorntree Press in March 2020. Her second, In It Together: Navigating Depression with Partners, Friends, and Family, will be released in March 2023.
Kevin A. Patterson, M.Ed., has been practicing ethical nonmonogamy for 15 years and is an active member of the Philadelphia polyamory community. He is the creator of the Poly Role Models project.
Kevin’s first book, Love’s Not Color Blind: Race and Representation in Polyamorous and Other Alternative Communities, was published by Thorntree Press in March 2018.
Tamara Pincus is a licensed clinical social worker and AASECT-certified sex therapist who runs a private practice in the Washington, DC, area. She specializes in working with kinky, polyamorous and LGBTQ clients and has been active in alternative sexuality communities since 1998. She has spoken around the country on issues related to ethics in sex therapy, consent culture, polyamory and BDSM.
Tamara co-wrote It’s Called “Polyamory”: Coming Out About Your Nonmonogamous Relationships, which was published by Thorntree Press in 2017.
Eve Rickert is a Gen X, queer, solo polyamorous, relationship anarchist, neurodivergent cis woman living on unceded W̱SÁNEĆ and Lekwungen territory (Victoria, Canada). She is a professional writer, editor and mastermind, the author of More Than Two: A Practical Guide to Ethical Polyamory, The Relationship Bill of Rights and Nonmonogamy and Jealousy, and the founder of Thornapple Press.
Evita “Lavitaloca” Sawyers is a Black, queer, ethical nonmonogamy coach, speaker, educator and advocate. She is the creator of the social media account Today’s Polyamory Reminder, which has inspired over 50,000 followers. Evita is also the subject of the groundbreaking polyamorous documentary Poly-Love. In her coaching and education, she specializes in navigating the transition from monogamy to nonmonogamy, coping with jealousy and articulating difficult emotions in healthy ways.
Her first book, A Polyamory Devotional: 365 Daily Reflections for the Consensually Nonmonogamous, will be published by Thornapple Press in 2023.
Ashley Speed is an AMI-certified Montessori guide with over a decade of classroom experience. She has presented at Montessori conferences on children’s literacy, creating queer-friendly classroom environments, sex ed and more. She has designed and sold inclusive classroom materials since 2016. She spends her spare time cross stitching, parenting a highly intelligent and energetic daughter, and sharing her life with two wonderful men—one of whom is the world’s best husband and one who writes the world’s best bios.
Ashley’s first book, Nonmonogamy and Teaching, will be released by Thornapple Press in 2023.
Kitty Stryker is a writer, activist and authority on developing a consent culture in alternative communities. She is the founder of ConsentCulture.com, a hub for LGBT, kinky, and polyamorous folks looking for a sex-critical approach to relationships, and was one of the first people to talk about what a consent culture was and could be. Kitty currently serves her community as a street medic and plans to expand on her work by studying law.
Kitty’s first book, Ask: Building Consent Culture, was published by Thorntree Press in October 2017. Her second, Ask Yourself: The Consent Culture Workbook, will be released by Thornapple Press in June 2023.
Rahim Thawer is a clinical social worker, psychotherapist, sessional lecturer, public speaker, workshop facilitator and mental health and equity consultant. He hosts The CBT Dive, which explores intervention tools to demystify what therapy can look like. Rahim is interested in the intersection of mental health and systemic oppression, as well as innovation in queer relationships. He’s been named a Fellow at the Bonham Centre for Sexual Diversity Studies at the University of Toronto for his contributions to the field of sexuality.
Rahim co-edited Any Other Way: How Toronto Got Queer (Coach House Books, 2017) and his first book, Seeking, will be published by Thornapple Press in 2024.
Tikva Wolf, best known for her webcomic Kimchi Cuddles, comes from a long line of love-activists and has been drawing ever since she could hold a crayon. What she primarily cares about in art (and life) is connecting to people, creating dialogue and spreading awareness. She lives in North Carolina.
Ask Me About Polyamory: The Best of Kimchi Cuddles was published by Thorntree Press in 2016, followed by Love, Retold in 2017 and It’s Ok Feelings, I Got You in 2018. Tikva also illustrated A Polyamory Devotional: 365 Daily Reflections for the Consensually Nonmonogamous, which will be released by Thornapple Press in 2023.