My first book was The Radical Act of Community Storytelling, a memoir/how-to/advocacy for the power of storytelling. I wrote it because I had been successfully producing an event, Odyssey Storytelling, in Tucson, Arizona, for several years, and I was in love with the whole process. I spent years learning to put on a monthly show, coaching novice tellers, and generating an audience. My goal with the creative non-fiction book was to share the joyful experience of community storytelling with future tellers, listeners, and organizers.

When word got out that I was the “storytelling lady,” I received requests to tell stories at meetings and conferences, and I usually politely declined. I think of myself as a storytelling facilitator, not a storyteller. Oh, sure, I can put together a few sentences, even humorous ones, for emceeing purposes. I can keep an event on track and promote other people’s stories, but I do not want to be the featured storyteller. My comfort lies behind the scenes. It’s been twenty years since I started Odyssey, and people still ask me to tell stories because they think I’m an expert.

I hoped to change that with my second book, Desert Haven, published by Rattling Good Yarns. It is a novel about a community of lesbians who flow in and out of each other’s lives on women’s land in the Sonoran Desert. It is fiction based on research and personal experiences. Fiction. Made-up stories about relationships and the complications of lives lived outside of expectations.

People ask me who the characters are based on or if, perhaps, it might be them. And they want to know which one is me. My answer is it’s fiction. They are made-up characters in a novel. Most people assume I lived at Desert Haven, which is a huge compliment. Desert Haven does not exist in real life, and I never lived on women’s land, but I have lived the years that I wrote about, have a great imagination and can build relatable characters.

I am not an expert on women’s lands, although I have read more about them than most people. I’ve followed email groups and subscribed to magazines for years. I have been to a few places. My knowledge comes from a curiosity about a segment of women’s history that is relatively unknown, and my intention was to honor the women who lived their lives with hard work and integrity.

Now, will my title of Storytelling Lady shift to “Lesbian Land lady?”

Recently, I was asked to moderate a panel at a book event. The organizer sent me a list of the tentative panelists, all trans folks. I wrote a book about lesbians that included one trans character, and now I’m an expert on all LGBTQ+ people. I politely declined, suggesting that it would be more appropriate to ask a writer who is trans and suggested they contact a local poet.

I cannot be the spokesperson for every LGBTQ+ person, nor can I ignore the fact that I understand our history from decades of being involved with lesbian and queer groups and causes. I’ve made it a priority to know our collective story and share that knowledge. I chose to do that now by writing novels that include accurate depictions of the past and interesting and timely situations in the present. That’s what writers do. We use our imaginations and expertise to create worlds from words.

After I declined the opportunity to be part of the book event, I was a bit sad about the lost opportunity, but the organizer wrote and offered me a panel with LGBTQ+ folks that I could say yes to. An expert, well, I don’t know, but I do feel qualified to ask the right questions.

The book I’m writing now is about three lesbians in a small town in Northern Arizona. The characters are composites of people I have known and heard about, and yes, bits of my personal story are intermingled. It includes parts of history that I need to research to write authentically, but I am by no means an expert.

Nowadays, I spend my time writing, not performing or curating shows, so I am no longer the storytelling lady – now I’m the “lesbian writer,” a new title to grapple with.