One Degree of Separation

Karin Kallmaker admits that her first crush on a woman was the local librarian. Just remembering the pencil through the loose, attractive bun makes her warm. She was perhaps more permanently marked by watching that same librarian, some years later, argue respectfully but passionately with a man who had thrown away a book he'd checked out, claiming it was obscene. Maybe it was the librarian's influence, but for whatever reason, at the age of 16 Karin fell into the arms of her first and only sweetheart. There's a certain symmetry to the fact that ten years later, after seeing the film Desert Hearts, her sweetheart descended on the Berkeley Public Library to find some of "those" books. In the old-style card catalogs, author card "Rule, Jane" led to subject card "Lesbianism-Fiction" and then on to book after self-affirming book by and about lesbians. These books were the encouragement Karin needed to forget the so-called "mainstream" and spin her first romance for lesbians. That manuscript became her first novel, In Every Port. The happily-ever-after couple now lives in the San Francisco Bay Area, and became Mom and Moogie to Kelson in 1995 and Eleanor in 1997. They celebrated their twenty-seventh anniversary in 2004. All of Karin's work can now be found at Bella Books. Details and background about her novels, and her other pen name, Laura Adams, can be found at her own web site.Kallmaker, Karin is the author of 'One Degree of Separation' with ISBN 9781931513302 and ISBN 1931513309.