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Episodes
A show about queer women in history and historic literature, plus coverage of the field of sapphic historical fiction. Content note: May include discussions of sex within an academic context.
A show about queer women in history and historic literature, plus coverage of the field of sapphic historical fiction. Content note: May include discussions of sex within an academic context.
Episodes

Saturday Jul 20, 2024
Saturday Jul 20, 2024
The Font of Liberty by Elizabeth Porter Birdsall
The Lesbian Historic Motif Podcast - Episode 291 with Heather Rose Jones
This quarter’s fiction episode presents “The Font of Liberty” by Elizabeth Porter Birdsall, narrated by C. J. Lavigne.
A transcript of this podcast is available here.
Links to the Lesbian Historic Motif Project Online
- Website: http://alpennia.com/lhmp
- Blog: http://alpennia.com/blog
- RSS: http://alpennia.com/blog/feed/
- Twitter: @LesbianMotif
- Discord: Contact Heather for an invitation to the Alpennia/LHMP Discord server
- The Lesbian Historic Motif Project Patreon
Links to Heather Online
- Website: http://alpennia.com
- Email: Heather Rose Jones
- Mastodon: @heatherrosejones@Wandering.Shop
- Bluesky: @heatherrosejones
- Facebook: Heather Rose Jones (author page)
Links to Elizabeth Porter Birdsall Online
- Bluesky: @epbirdsall.bsky.social
- Mastodon: @epbirdsall@wandering.shop
Links to C.J. Lavigne Online
- Website: CJLaVigne.com

Saturday Jul 06, 2024
On the Shelf for July 2024 - The Lesbian Historic Motif Podcast Episode 290
Saturday Jul 06, 2024
Saturday Jul 06, 2024
On the Shelf for July 2024
The Lesbian Historic Motif Podcast - Episode 290 with Heather Rose Jones
Your monthly roundup of history, news, and the field of sapphic historical fiction.
- Recent and upcoming publications covered on the blog
- Ng, Vivien. 1997. “Looking for Lesbians in Chinese History” in Duberman, Martin (ed) A Queer World. New York University Press, New York. ISBN 0-8247-2874-4
- Jankowski, Theodora A. 1996. “’Where there can be no cause of affection’: Redefining Virgins, Their Desires, and Their Pleasures in John Lyly’s Gallathea” in Feminist Readings of Early Modern Culture: Emerging Subjects, edited by Valerie Traub, M. Lindsay Kaplan, and Dympna Callaghan. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, ISBN 0-521-55249-4 pp.253-74.
- Jankowski, Theodora A. 2000. “...in the Lesbian Void: Woman-Woman Eroticism in Shakespeare’s Plays” in A Feminist Companion to Shakespeare, edited by Dympna Callaghan. Oxford: Blackwell, 299-319. ISBN 0-631-20806-2
- Cheek, Pamela. 1998. "The 'Mémoires secrets' and the Actress: Tribadism, Performance, and Property", in Jeremy D. Popkin and Bernadette Fort (eds), The "Mémoires secrets" and the Culture of Publicity in Eighteenth-Century France, Oxford: Voltaire Foundation.
- Cameron, A. 1998. “Love (and Marriage) Between Women” in Greek, Roman, and Byzantine Studies 39, pp.137-156
- Book Shopping
- Girouard, Mark. 1978. Life in the English Country House. Yale University Press, New Haven. ISBN 0-300-02273-5
- Thornton, Peter. 1978. Seventeenth-Century Interior Decoration in England, France & Holland. Yale University Press, New Haven. ISBN 0-300-02776-1
- Recent Lesbian/Sapphic Historical Fiction
- Meridian Bay: A Linked Collection by A.L. Duncan, McGee Mathews, Nancy Sparks
- Cupid's Trap (Cupid's Favorites #1) by Jaye Vincent
- The Earl's Wife by Jessica Dalvin
- The Lady's Secret: A Regency Affair by Adela Vesper
- Claire's Young Flame (1920s French Quarter Sapphic Series #1) by Aven Blair
- Evan's Entanglement (1920s French Quarter Sapphic Series #2) by Aven Blair
- Julian's Lady Luck (1920s French Quarter Sapphic Series #3) by Aven Blair
- Love in the Shadows by Emma Nichols
- Death Has Golden Eyes (Dizzy Dixon Mysteries #1) by Cameron Darrow
- The Lotus Empire (The Burning Kingdoms #3) by Tasha Suri
- A Rose by Any Other Name by Mary McMyne
- Forever Fields by Josh Hill
- Daughters of Chaos by Jen Fawkes
- Doctor's Bitter Pill by Sharon G. Clark
- A Lethal Lady (Harlem Renaissance #3) by Nekesa Afia
- Queen B (HMRC #3) by Juno Dawson
- Whispers in the Stacks: An Anthology of Library Love Stories edited by M.J. Lowe
- Other Titles of Interest
- What I’ve been consuming
- The Chatelaine by Kate Heartfield
- Paladin’s Grace, Paladin’s Strength, Paladin’s Hope (The Saint of Steel books 1-3) by T. Kingfisher
- Rose House by Arkady Martine
- The Mimicking of Known Successes by Malka Older
A transcript of this podcast is available here. (Interview transcripts added when available.)
Links to the Lesbian Historic Motif Project Online
- Website: http://alpennia.com/lhmp
- Blog: http://alpennia.com/blog
- RSS: http://alpennia.com/blog/feed/
- Twitter: @LesbianMotif
- Discord: Contact Heather for an invitation to the Alpennia/LHMP Discord server
- The Lesbian Historic Motif Project Patreon
Links to Heather Online
- Website: http://alpennia.com
- Email: Heather Rose Jones
- Mastodon: @heatherrosejones@Wandering.Shop
- Bluesky: @heatherrosejones
- Facebook: Heather Rose Jones (author page)

Saturday Jun 15, 2024
Saturday Jun 15, 2024
Our F/Favorite Tropes Part 13: Mothers, Sisters, Daughter – Pseudo-familial Relationships
The Lesbian Historic Motif Podcast - Episode 289 with Heather Rose Jones
In this episode we talk about:
- Relationships using the imagery of sisters and mother/daughter
- Age-gap relationships
- References
- Babayan, Kathryn. “’In Spirit We Ate Each Other’s Sorrow’ Female Companionship in Seventeenth-Century Safavi Iran” in Babayan, Kathryn and Afsaneh Najmabadi (eds.). 2008. Islamicate Sexualities: Translations Across Temporal Geographies of Desire. Cambridge: Harvard University Press. ISBN 978-0-674-03204-0
- Boswell, John. 1994. Same-Sex Unions in Premodern Europe. Villard Books, New York. ISBN 0-679-43228-0
- Hansen, Karen V. 1995. "No Kisses is Like Youres" in Gender and History vol 7, no 2: 153-182.
- Lasser, Carol. 1988. "'Let Us Be Sisters Forever': The Sororal Model of Nineteenth-Century Female Friendship" in Signs vol. 14, no. 1 158-181.
- Levin, Richard A. 1997. “What? How? Female-Female Desire in Sidney’s New Arcadia” in Criticism 39:4 : 463-49.
- Matter, E. Ann. 1989. “My Sister, My Spouse: Woman-Identified Women in Medieval Christianity” in Weaving the Visions: New Patterns in Feminist Spirituality, eds. Judith Plaskow & Carol P. Christ. Harper & Row, San Francisco.
- Merrill, Lisa. 2000. When Romeo was a Woman: Charlotte Cushman and her Circle of Female Spectators. The University of Michigan Press, Ann Arbor. ISBN 978-0-472-08749-5
- Morgan, Mihangel. 2016. “From Huw Arwystli to Siôn Eirian: Representative Examples of Cadi/Queer Life from Medieval to Twentieth-century Welsh Literature” in Queer Wales: The History, Culture and Politics of Queer Life in Wales. Huw Osborne (ed). University of Wales Press, Cardiff. ISBN 978-1-7831-6863-7
- Rizzo, Betty. 1994. Companions without Vows: Relationships among Eighteenth-Century British Women. Athens: University of Georgia Press. ISBN 978-0-8203-3218-5
- Smith-Rosenberg, Carroll. 1975. “The Female World of Love and Ritual: Relations between Women in Nineteenth-Century America” in Signs vol. 1, no. 1 1-29.
- Vanita, Ruth. 1996. Sappho and the Virgin Mary: Same-Sex Love and the English Literary Imagination. Columbia University Press, New York. ISBN 0-231-10551-7
- Vicinus, Martha. 2004. Intimate Friends: Women Who Loved Women, 1778-1928. University of Chicago Press, Chicago. ISBN 0-226-85564-3
- Wiethaus, Ulrike. 1993. “In Search of Medieval Women’s Friendships: Hildegard of Bingen’s Letters to her Female Contemporaries” in Wiethaus, Ulrike (ed) Maps of Flesh and Light: The Religious Experience of Medieval Women Mystics. Syracuse University Press, Syracuse. ISBN 0-8156-2560-X
A transcript of this podcast is available here.
Links to the Lesbian Historic Motif Project Online
- Website: http://alpennia.com/lhmp
- Blog: http://alpennia.com/blog
- RSS: http://alpennia.com/blog/feed/
- Twitter: @LesbianMotif
- Discord: Contact Heather for an invitation to the Alpennia/LHMP Discord server
- The Lesbian Historic Motif Project Patreon
Links to Heather Online
- Website: http://alpennia.com
- Email: Heather Rose Jones
- Mastodon: @heatherrosejones@Wandering.Shop
- Bluesky: @heatherrosejones
- Facebook: Heather Rose Jones (author page)

Saturday Jun 01, 2024
On the Shelf for June 2024 - The Lesbian Historic Motif Podcast Episode 288
Saturday Jun 01, 2024
Saturday Jun 01, 2024
On the Shelf for June 2024
The Lesbian Historic Motif Podcast - Episode 288 with Heather Rose Jones
Your monthly roundup of history, news, and the field of sapphic historical fiction.
In this episode we talk about:
- New podcast Period – feminist look at historical dramas
- Lesbiantiquity
- Book Shopping
- Mortimer, Ian. 2012. The Time Traveler's Guide to Elizabethan England. Penguin Books, New York. ISBN 978-0-14-312563-1
- Brown, Pamela Allen & Peter Parolin (eds). 2005. Women Players in England, 1500-1660. Ashgate, Burlington. ISBN 978-0-7546-6535-9
- Colonna, Pompeo (intro Franco Minonzio, trans Margaret L. King). 2024. In Defense of Women: A Bilingual Edition. Iter Press, New York. ISBN 978-1-64959-113-5
- Recent Lesbian/Sapphic Historical Fiction
- Uncharted Waters (The Savages of Falcote) by Ally Hastings
- Three Times Elspeth Harris Rode to Town by Becky Black
- She Serves the Realm (No Man is her Master #4) by Lee Swanson
- The Ballad of Jacquotte Delahaye by Briony Cameron
- A Bluestocking's Guide to Decadence (Lucky Lovers of London #3) by Jess Everlee
- Her Runaway Bride (Hers: Victorian Lesbian Romance) by Brooke Winters
- Tides of Captivation: A sapphic pirate tale (Daughters Under the Black Flag #1) by Eden Hopewell
- What I’ve been consuming
- The Witch King by Martha Wells
- Travelers Along the Way by Aminah Mae Safi
- Don’t Want You Like a Best Friend by Emma R. Alban
A transcript of this podcast is available here. (Interview transcripts added when available.)
Links to the Lesbian Historic Motif Project Online
- Website: http://alpennia.com/lhmp
- Blog: http://alpennia.com/blog
- RSS: http://alpennia.com/blog/feed/
- Twitter: @LesbianMotif
- Discord: Contact Heather for an invitation to the Alpennia/LHMP Discord server
- The Lesbian Historic Motif Project Patreon
Links to Heather Online
- Website: http://alpennia.com
- Email: Heather Rose Jones
- Mastodon: @heatherrosejones@Wandering.Shop
- Bluesky: @heatherrosejones
- Facebook: Heather Rose Jones (author page)

Saturday May 18, 2024
All the Historic Lesbianisms - The Lesbian Historic Motif Podcast Episode 287
Saturday May 18, 2024
Saturday May 18, 2024
All the Historic Lesbianisms
The Lesbian Historic Motif Podcast - Episode 287 with Heather Rose Jones
In this episode we talk about:
- Social models of women loving women
- Variables and features of those models
A transcript of this podcast is available here.
Links to the Lesbian Historic Motif Project Online
- Website: http://alpennia.com/lhmp
- Blog: http://alpennia.com/blog
- RSS: http://alpennia.com/blog/feed/
- Twitter: @LesbianMotif
- Discord: Contact Heather for an invitation to the Alpennia/LHMP Discord server
- The Lesbian Historic Motif Project Patreon
Links to Heather Online
- Website: http://alpennia.com
- Email: Heather Rose Jones
- Mastodon: @heatherrosejones@Wandering.Shop
- Bluesky: @heatherrosejones
- Facebook: Heather Rose Jones (author page)

Saturday May 04, 2024
On the Shelf for May 2024 - The Lesbian Historic Motif Podcast Episode 286
Saturday May 04, 2024
Saturday May 04, 2024
On the Shelf for May 2024
The Lesbian Historic Motif Podcast - Episode 286 with Heather Rose Jones
Your monthly roundup of history, news, and the field of sapphic historical fiction.
In this episode we talk about:
- Book Shopping
- Tomlinson, Sophie. 2005. Women on Stage in Stuart Drama. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 0-521-81111-2
- Recent Lesbian/Sapphic Historical Fiction
- Unholy with Eyes like Wolves by Morgan Dante
- Harvest Season (The Old Bridge Inn #3) by Annick Trent
- The Summer of Second Chances (Desiring the Dexingtons #4) by Renee Dahlia
- 2 Screams 1 Sugar: A Sapphic Friends to Lovers Romance by Sula Sullivan
- The Good Women of Fudi by Liu Hong
- Adrift by Sam Ledel
- My Darling Dreadful Thing by Johanna van Veen
- A Liaison with Her Leading Lady by Lotte R. James
- The Honey Witch by Sydney J. Shields
- Other Titles of Interest
- What I’ve been consuming
- Song of the Huntress by Lucy Holland
- Mammoths at the Gates by Nghi Vo
- Death in the Spires by K.J. Charles
- The Time Travelers Guide to Regency Britain by Ian Mortimer
- The Time Travelers Guide to Restoration Britain by Ian Mortimer
A transcript of this podcast is available here. (Interview transcripts added when available.)
Links to the Lesbian Historic Motif Project Online
- Website: http://alpennia.com/lhmp
- Blog: http://alpennia.com/blog
- RSS: http://alpennia.com/blog/feed/
- Twitter: @LesbianMotif
- Discord: Contact Heather for an invitation to the Alpennia/LHMP Discord server
- The Lesbian Historic Motif Project Patreon
Links to Heather Online
- Website: http://alpennia.com
- Email: Heather Rose Jones
- Mastodon: @heatherrosejones@Wandering.Shop
- Bluesky: @heatherrosejones
- Facebook: Heather Rose Jones (author page)

Monday Apr 22, 2024
Monday Apr 22, 2024
Poetry about Love between Women from the 19th Century
The Lesbian Historic Motif Podcast - Episode 285 with Heather Rose Jones
In this episode we talk about:
- 19th century poetry
- Connections and cross-references between women poets
- Sources mentioned
- In addition to being found in the following sources, the text of many of these poems have been taken from various online sources not mentioned.
- Castle, Terry (ed). 2003. The Literature of Lesbianism: A Historical Anthology from Ariosto to Stonewall. Columbia University Press, New York. ISBN 0-231-12510-0
- Domna C. Stanton. 1986. The Defiant Muse: French Feminist Poems from the Middle Ages to the Present. The Feminist Press, New York. ISBN 0-935312-52-8
- Donoghue, Emma. 1997. Poems Between Women: Four centuries of love, romantic friendship, and desire. Columbia University Press, New York. ISBN 978-0-231-10925-3
- Faderman, Lillian (ed). 1994. Chloe Plus Olivia: An Anthology of Lesbian Literature from the Seventeenth Century to the Present. New York: VIking. ISBN 0-670-84368-4
- Faderman, Lillian. 1999.To Believe in Women: What Lesbians Have Done for America – A History. Houghton Mifflin Company, Boston. ISBN 0-395-85010-X
- Greene, Ellen (ed). 1996. Re-Reading Sappho: Recepton and Transmission. University of California Press, Berkeley. ISBN 0-520-20602-9
- Griffin, Farah Jasmine. 1999. Beloved Sisters and Loving Friends: Letters from Rebecca Primus of Royal Oak, Maryland, and Addie Brown of Hartford, Connecticut, 1854-1868. Alfred A. Knopf, New York. ISBN 0-679-45128-5
- Johnson, Thomas R. (ed). 1961. The Complete Poems of Emily Dickinson. Little, Brown, and Company, Boston. ISBN 0-316-18413-6
- Vicinus, Martha. 2004. Intimate Friends: Women Who Loved Women, 1778-1928. University of Chicago Press, Chicago. ISBN 0-226-85564-3
A transcript of this podcast is available here.
Links to the Lesbian Historic Motif Project Online
- Website: http://alpennia.com/lhmp
- Blog: http://alpennia.com/blog
- RSS: http://alpennia.com/blog/feed/
- Twitter: @LesbianMotif
- Discord: Contact Heather for an invitation to the Alpennia/LHMP Discord server
- The Lesbian Historic Motif Project Patreon
Links to Heather Online
- Website: http://alpennia.com
- Email: Heather Rose Jones
- Mastodon: @heatherrosejones@Wandering.Shop
- Bluesky: @heatherrosejones
- Facebook: Heather Rose Jones (author page)

Saturday Apr 06, 2024
On the Shelf for April 2024 - The Lesbian Historic Motif Podcast Episode 284
Saturday Apr 06, 2024
Saturday Apr 06, 2024
On the Shelf for April 2024
The Lesbian Historic Motif Podcast - Episode 284 with Heather Rose Jones
Your monthly roundup of history, news, and the field of sapphic historical fiction.
In this episode we talk about:
- Book Shopping
- Norman, Ben. 2023. Pomp and Piety: Everyday Life of the Aristocracy in Stuart England. Amberley Publishing. ISBN 978-1-3981-1017-5
- Southon, Emma. 2023. A Rome of One's Own: The Forgotten Women of the Roman Empire. New York: Abrams Press. ISBN 978-1-4197-6018-1
- Turton, Stephen. 2024. Before the Word Was Queer: Sexuality and the English Dictionary, 1600-1930. Cambridge University Press. ISBN: 978-1-31651873-1
- Recent Lesbian/Sapphic Historical Fiction
- Other Titles of Interest
- What I’ve been consuming
- A Fire Born of Exile by Aliette de Bodard
- Starter Villain by John Scalzi
A transcript of this podcast is available here.
Links to the Lesbian Historic Motif Project Online
- Website: http://alpennia.com/lhmp
- Blog: http://alpennia.com/blog
- RSS: http://alpennia.com/blog/feed/
- Twitter: @LesbianMotif
- Discord: Contact Heather for an invitation to the Alpennia/LHMP Discord server
- The Lesbian Historic Motif Project Patreon
Links to Heather Online
- Website: http://alpennia.com
- Email: Heather Rose Jones
- Mastodon: @heatherrosejones@Wandering.Shop
- Bluesky: @heatherrosejones
- Facebook: Heather Rose Jones (author page)

Sunday Mar 31, 2024
Sunday Mar 31, 2024
Daughters of Derbyshire by Daniel Stride
The Lesbian Historic Motif Podcast - Episode 283 with Heather Rose Jones
This quarter’s fiction episode presents “Daughers of Derbyshire” by Daniel Stride, narrated by Heather Rose Jones.
A transcript of this podcast is available here.
Links to the Lesbian Historic Motif Project Online
- Website: http://alpennia.com/lhmp
- Blog: http://alpennia.com/blog
- RSS: http://alpennia.com/blog/feed/
- Twitter: @LesbianMotif
- Discord: Contact Heather for an invitation to the Alpennia/LHMP Discord server
- The Lesbian Historic Motif Project Patreon
Links to Heather Online
- Website: http://alpennia.com
- Email: Heather Rose Jones
- Mastodon: @heatherrosejones@Wandering.Shop
- Bluesky: @heatherrosejones
- Facebook: Heather Rose Jones (author page)
Links to Daniel Stride Online
- Website: A Phuulish Fellow

Sunday Mar 17, 2024
Amazons - The Lesbian Historic Motif Podcast Episode 282
Sunday Mar 17, 2024
Sunday Mar 17, 2024
Amazons
The Lesbian Historic Motif Podcast - Episode 282 with Heather Rose Jones
In this episode we talk about:
- Possible historic sources for the Amazon myth
- Classical and post-classical Amazons
- Homoeroticism and Amazon characters
- Sources mentioned
- Amer, S. 2009. “Medieval Arab Lesbians and 'Lesbian-Like'” in Journal of the History of Sexuality, 18(2), 215-236.
- Blythe, James M. 2001. “Women in the Military: Scholastic Arguments and Medieval Images of Female Warriors” in History of Political Thought, vol. 22 no. 2, pp.242-269.
- Boehringer, Sandra (trans. Anna Preger). 2021. Female Homosexuality in Ancient Greece and Rome. Routledge, New York. ISBN 978-0-367-74476-2
- Crane, Susan. 1996. “Clothing and Gender Definition: Joan of Arc,” in Journal of Medieval and Early Modern Studies 26:2 : 297-320.
- Dekker, Rudolf M. and van de Pol, Lotte C. 1989. The Tradition of Female Transvestism in Early Modern Europe. Macmillan, London. ISBN 0-333-41253-2
- Donoghue, Emma. 2010. Inseparable: Desire Between Women in Literature. Alfred A. Knopf, New York. ISBN 978-0-307-27094-8
- Habib, Samar. 2007. Female Homosexuality in the Middle East: Histories and Representations. Routledge, New York. ISBN 78-0-415-80603-9
- Hinds, Leonard. 2001. “Female Friendship as the Foundation of Love in Madeleine de Scudéry’s ‘Histoire de Sapho’” in Merrick, Jeffrey & Michael Sibalis, eds. Homosexuality in French History and Culture. Harrington Park Press, New York. ISBN 1-56023-263-3
- Kruk, Remke. 1998. “The Bold and the Beautiful: Women and ‘fitna’ in the S?rat Dh?t al-Himma: The Story of N?r?” in Women in the Medieval Islamic World: Power, Patronage, and Piety, ed. Gavin R. G. Hambly. New York: St. Martin’s Press. ISBN 0-312-21057-4
- Mayor, Adrienne. 2014. The Amazons: Lives and Legends of Warrior Women across the Ancient World. Princeton: Princeton University Press. ISBN 978-0-691-14720-8
- Morrison, Susan Signe. 2017. A Medieval Woman's Companion. Oxbow Books, Oxford. ISBN 978-1-78570-079-8
- Murray, Stephen O. 1997. “Woman-Woman Love in Islamic Societies” in Islamic Homosexualities - Culture, History, and Literature, ed. by Stephen O. Murray & Will Roscoe. New York University Press, New York. ISBN 0-8147-7468-7
- Schwarz, Kathryn. 2000. Tough Love: Amazon Encounters in the English Renaissance. Durham: Duke University Press. ISBN 0-8223-2599-3
- Stephens, Dorothy. 1994. “Into Other Arms: Amoret’s Evasion” in Queering the Renaissance ed. by Jonathan Goldberg. Duke University Press, Durham and London. ISBN 0-8223-1381-2
- Wahl, Elizabeth Susan. 1999. Invisible Relations: Representations of Female Intimacy in the Age of Enlightenment. Stanford University Press, Stanford. ISBN 0-8047-3650-2
- Walen, Denise A. 2005. Constructions of Female Homoeroticism in Early Modern Drama. New York: Palgrave MacMillan. ISBN 978-1-4039-6875-3
- Westphal, Sarah. 1997. "Amazons and Guérillères" in Medieval Feminist Newsletter, No. 23: 24-28.
- Wilde, Lyn Webster. 1999. On the Trail of the Women Warriors. London: Constable. ISBN 0-09-148080-3
- This topic is discussed in one or more entries of the Lesbian Historic Motif Project here: Amazons
A transcript of this podcast is available here.
Links to the Lesbian Historic Motif Project Online
- Website: http://alpennia.com/lhmp
- Blog: http://alpennia.com/blog
- RSS: http://alpennia.com/blog/feed/
- Twitter: @LesbianMotif
- Discord: Contact Heather for an invitation to the Alpennia/LHMP Discord server
- The Lesbian Historic Motif Project Patreon
Links to Heather Online
- Website: http://alpennia.com
- Email: Heather Rose Jones
- Mastodon: @heatherrosejones@Wandering.Shop
- Bluesky: @heatherrosejones
- Facebook: Heather Rose Jones (author page)
