Meet the Review Team

♥ Sally Bibrary

I am proud in pink, a transgendered gurl who loves exploring the fluid, ambiguous, ever-changing definition of gender. After a lifetime in the closet, I am enjoying the love, acceptance, and support of my wonderful spouse (and couldn't be happier).

My passions are curiosity, diversity, and imagination. The world is what we make of it, so why should we ever be content with what others tell us it should be? My love for literature, like my gender and sexuality, is both fluid and diverse. I am a self-professed book slut, always eager to read, but always drawn to stories with which I can indentify, regardless of genre. For me, the true power of LGBTQIA literature is its ability to celebrate what others consider alternative as mainstream . . . and to imagine a world where the alternative is the mainstream.

The only thing I love more than curling up with a good book is sharing one with friends and watching them fall in love!

In addition to managing Bending the Bookshelf, I also write the bimonthly Frock Books column for Frock Magazine and have been a judge with the Rainbow Awards for the last 3 years.

You can email me at webmistress[at]bibrary[dot]com

[Check out Sally's reviews]



♥ Samuel Rafael

HAVING SPENT MANY YEARS in the business world, mostly in high tech, some time ago I decided to pursue an old dream and follow a path to become a Marriage and Family Therapist. Returning to graduate school, I obtained a Masters degree in clinical psychology and then continued on to earn a Doctor of Education in counseling psychology. I've been in practice now for over a decade.

As a county mental health clinician in northern California, I worked with severely emotionally disturbed children for five years, but my newer focus is on treating adults diagnosed with severe mental illness who have committed crimes and are part of a community program designed to keep them out of jail.

 In my private practice, I see adults, couples and children. My interest is in such issues as grief and loss, anger, depression, anxiety, post-traumatic stress, communication problems, impulsivity, parenting, sexuality issues and gender identity concerns.

 My therapy style blends psychodynamic, relational and cognitive-behavioral approaches built on a foundation of real life experience and compassion, with a touch of humor thrown in for good measure. I am a member of the California Association of Marriage and Family Therapists and The World Professional Association for Transgender Health (WPATH).

You can email me at samrafael[at]earthlink[dot]net

[Check out Samuel's reviews]




♥ Candace Cerly

I am what my friends have called a literary whore . . . an insatiable reader and an obsessive author who has never said 'no' to a good story. My bookshelves and Kindle tend to be well-stocked with fetish erotica, transgender romances, and the kind of weird, kinky fiction that makes people shift an extra seat away on the bus.

I have been writing transgender and fetish erotica for nearly as long as I've been reading it, with stories published across the web under a number of different pseudonyms. Lately, I have finally decided to get serious about my writing, with a few anthology submissions already under my skirt, a pair of novellas being collared and leashed for electronic release, and a full-length novel nestled safely within the shadows of my cleavage . . . for now.

I have become quite fond of telling people that I am transgendered by birth, but genderqueer by circumstance. It is a statement that I feel sums up my situation quite eloquently, for I am far too much of a fetishist (with a lust of the beauty that lies between the gender binaries) to ever fully transition. I have found peace in my genderqueer identity, and I can honestly say the pleasure it provides is indescribable.

You can email me at candi[dot]cerly[at]gmail[dot]com

[Check out Candace's reviews]




♥ Cari Z.

I’m a child full of wanderlust born into a family of the staid, solid and true.  Escape came in the form of art, writing, dance and eventually, a two-year stint in the Peace Corps that took me to Togo (bonus points for anyone who actually knows where that is!).  My specialty was health education, with a focus on child nutrition and vaccination, women’s health, and birth control.  After you’ve taught hundreds of high schoolers how to slide a condom on and off of a custom-made wooden penis, you tend to look at toys differently than your fellow Americans.

My personal tastes run to books whose characters have flexible gender roles, sexually accepting personalities and a willingness, no matter how they might identify, to try something new when the time is right.  While most of what I personally write revolves around male characters (human, alien, god, angel, demon or machine) I read more broadly, and love the silly and lighthearted just as much as the serious and rigorous.

My passions and my interests never stop evolving.  I love new experiences, I love old favorites, and I never say no to curious encounters.  Shock or amaze, enlighten or terrify me, set my heart on fire or drown it in sweetness, and I’ll thank you for the pleasure.


You can email me at carizabeth[at]hotmail[dot]com

[Check out Cari's reviews]

♥