Lasara Firefox Allen, MSW (they/them/Mx.) is a trans, genderqueer author, educator, and certified menopause doula and coach. They are the founder and CEO of Genderqueer Futures, a global education and coaching practice specializing in gender-affirming menopause care for providers and gender-expansive individuals. Lasara is the author of Genderqueer Menopause (North Atlantic Books, 2026), an Amazon bestseller and Independent Press Top 40 title, Jailbreaking the Goddess (Llewellyn, 2016), and Sexy Witch(Llewellyn, 2005), with a fourth book, Menopause Reclaimed: Rituals and Guidance for Magickal Transformation, forthcoming from Llewellyn in June 2027. Through the Gender-Affirming Menopause Care Certification Course, they train healthcare providers and coaches worldwide, blending clinical education, lived experience, and liberatory frameworks. Lasara is a speaker at the 2026 WPATH Scientific Symposium and the GLMA LGBTQ+ Health Conference, among others. They live with/in Ohlone lands (Oakland, CA).

Dr. Louann Brizendine is a UCSF clinical professor, Yale, Harvard, and UCSF trained in medicine and neuropsychiatry; founder of the UCSF Women’s Mood and Hormone Clinic; author of the NYT bestselling The Female Brain and upcoming Your Brain on Menopause.

Keli Dailey is a journalist, comedian, and teacher whose work explores democracy, midlife, and the absurdities of modern life. She created the comedy-news series News Hangover and founded MenoPower, a storytelling project that uses humor to tackle menopause and aging. A former John S. Knight Journalism Fellow at Stanford, she teaches writing and communications in the Bay Area.

Rebecca Foust’s books include You Are Leaving the American Sector: Love Poems (Blue Light Press 2026) and Only (Four Way Books 2022). Her poems appear widely in venues including The Slowdown, Iowa Review, Ploughshares, Poem-a-Day, POETRY, and Southern Review, winning the James Dickey, New Ohio Review, Pablo Neruda, James Hearst, and Poetry International prizes in recent years.

Alecia Greenlee, MD, MPH, is a reproductive psychiatrist, speaker, and founder of Bloom & Build Integrative Psychiatry in Campbell, California. Board-certified in adult and consultation-liaison psychiatry, she trained at UCSF, Harvard's Cambridge Health Alliance, and the University of Chicago, where she completed fellowships in consultation-liaison psychiatry and medical ethics. Dr. Greenlee specializes in the intersection of mental health, hormonal change, and women's lives: from PMDD and the reproductive years through perimenopause and menopause. Her work explores how hormonal transitions can reshape mood, cognition, identity, relationships, and a woman's understanding of herself, particularly when ADHD or other long-overlooked concerns are recognized in midlife. She is especially interested in moving menopause care beyond symptom management toward psychological growth, self-reclamation, and well-being. She is also an educational contributor to Menovation, a fitness and health platform for women in perimenopause and menopause, and sees patients in Campbell and throughout California by telehealth.

Dr. Sarah Isquick is a board-certified obstetrician-gynecologist and Menopause Society Certified Practitioner who founded her San Francisco concierge practice on a simple belief: women deserve unhurried, deeply personal care from a physician who truly knows them. She specializes in hormonal health, with deep expertise in perimenopause and menopause as well as PCOS, PMDD, and endometriosis, alongside contraception, sexual wellness, and preventive care. She is known for helping patients navigate complex, overlapping symptoms with clarity and evidence-based guidance, integrating clinical rigor with careful attention to nutrition, movement, sleep, and stress. Dr. Isquick completed her residency at UCSF and is an Affiliated Clinical Assistant Professor at Stanford School of Medicine. She holds subspecialty certification in complex family planning and is a member of the International Society for the Study of Women's Sexual Health. She sees patients in person throughout California and provides virtual care in New York and Florida.

Litquake’s diverse live programs aim to inspire critical engagement with the key issues of the day, bring people together around the common humanity encapsulated in literature, and perpetuate a sense of literary community by providing a vibrant forum for Bay Area writing. Because we believe in literature as a public good, we work to produce events that are accessible to all.