Lou Kief
From a very earthy perspective
“I’ve learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did,
but people will never forget how you made them feel.”
- Maya Angelou
New Releases
-- Late Fall 2025
"Two men on a seven-year passage to somewhere else."
Salt and Solace
If you’re looking for an against-all-odds, compelling real-life adventure that champions living authentically and pursuing your dreams regardless of age or circumstance, don’t miss Salt & Solace.
Join, Lou & Bill, or as they call themselves, a couple of old hippies with facial hair who have lived their lives in t-shirts and Levi 501s on their seven-year, life-changing passage to somewhere else. Set in San Francisco, it was a time at the dawn of another world-wide pandemic, AIDS, that would kill millions and leave everyone emotionally exhausted, filled with anxiety, hopelessness and uncertainty. It’s not just a travelogue; it’s a journey of personal growth, self-reliance and finding happiness outside of societal norms.
This is the kind of read you may end up carrying to the bathroom because you can’t
put it down.
-- Late Fall 2026
Will Thy Songs Remain
Meet Balthazar Lipinski, a quiet young boy born the year Mister Truman dropped his atom bombs on those “Slanty Eyed Bastards.” Knocked around, threatened, bruised, buggered and disillusioned, as it turned out Bart was born a seeker, and when things just didn’t add up, he went after the answers with voracity of purpose and a sense of humor.
Young Bart Lipinski was on a journey to find a God not controlled by a church.
Now, I have a story to tell you.
It may make you squirm.
At Booksellers Now
In All the Silent Manliness
Life doesn’t stop being funny when someone dies. Barry Lowe ran away to San Francisco to hide who he was, but his escape quickly ends when his younger brother, Rob, is killed and he finds himself on a bitter-sweet journey home to the family funeral business. Flash back with him as he relives growing up in that same building while he steps in for his parents to take charge. If you liked ”Six Feet Under” you’ll love the quirky and sometimes hilarious characters that inhabit Barry’s world.
“Read and enjoy the journey!
I finished the book with a Kleenex in my hand
and a smile on my face.”
- Connie Hollander
Doing Retail Right
For the first time in history, the entire complexion of retailing has changed in a two-decade period. The line has been forever blurred between physical and virtual retail stores. The two have become symbiotic as the physical store can no longer exist successfully without its virtual partner.
For a book about retailing to be truly valuable, it must give you the information you need to think differently, to inspire you to buy differently, hire differently, operate differently, display differently and promote differently. More than anything else, successful retailing has become a mindset and only the cleverest and determined will survive.
Hide this book from your employees in your desk drawer and come back to it for answers and inspiration as you run your business, start a successful new one or save one that is in jeopardy of being left behind.
Let No Stranger Wait Outside Your Door
“It’s not often I come across a book which is hard to put down. This compelling, well-written memoir, happens to be one of them. Lou Kief retells his journey westward from his early days as a paramedic in Detroit to being a carpenter in San Francisco, a place where a gay person 1960s and 70s could find freedom to be authentic. Lou is a brilliant raconteur, filling in great detail the pages with his wild, crazy and amusing experiences, the stories of life, death, love and heartbreak.”
Chris Rayan, Culture Savvy
Meet Lou
Lou Kief was born in Detroit, Michigan in 1945. He is a third-generation carpenter son of a German carpenter’s son, with DNA going back to the Bourbon kings. His mother, born in Canada to Ukrainian and Austrian parents, went beyond her grade school education to achieve college
levels through self-study. From childhood Lou had an insatiable appetite for writing, designing and building things with his hands.
A closeted gay man as a young adult, in the 1960’s he ran away to San Francisco and found himself in the middle of the most significant period in the history of gay liberation. Of the many places and times that have set the foundation for American LGBTQ rights, Lou was there living through it.
He attended summer journalism classes at the University of Detroit and later at Concordia College in Ann Arbor then San Francisco State, and wrote for trade publications including Harcourt Brace Jovanovich business magazines, Furniture World Magazine and the trade journals of the National Home Furnishings Association.
In the late l970’s, Lou began working with retailers across the United States and Canada to improve their stores. In 1990 he was Vice-President of Bryant Forney Associates, a store planning firm in San Francisco, California before leaving to start his own company with Bill Walls designing and remodeling stores.
Lou is a highly regarded motivational speaker and has presented numerous seminars and workshops for National and California Home Furnishings association’s members as well as Furniture Today and the California Vintners Association.
Currently he and his partner of forty-six years, Bill, live in Green Valley (Tucson), Arizona and share their home with Beau, a big, happy one-year-old pup from a local shelter and Buddy, a kitten who showed up bleeding and abandoned in their yard at only three weeks old.
In 1983 he and Bill began rebuilding an old wooden ketch and began a seven-year sailing adventure. It was during this time on board the good ship Providence, while snug in their hurricane-hole near Puerto Vallarta, Mexico, that Lou’s first book was written, a seventy-five-thousand-word first draft fell out of him in just nineteen days.
• In 2010 Lou’s first book was released, “In All the Silent Manliness,” a novel of family loss and grief.
• In 2012, he and his partner, Bill Walls co-wrote “Doing Retail Right” to help retailers stay motivated and successful as the worlds of brick-and-mortar stores began to collide with virtual retailing.
• In 2013, “Let No Stranger Wait Outside Your Door,” Lou’s memoire about coming out and San Francisco during the 1970s continues its run in popularity in seven countries.
At this writing, Lou is working to complete “SALT & SOLACE," Two Men on a Seven-Year Passage to Somewhere Else.” The book has a late 2025 publication date.
Dive deeper into Lou Kief’s thoughts, inspirations, and creative process on the official blog. From behind-the-scenes stories to personal reflections and updates, the blog offers a closer look at the ideas that shape his work. Read the blog →
Media
An author is only as good as the people who love what he writes. I’m honored to introduce you to a dedicated group of professionals who keep my writing in front of readers. Today, thanks to social media, news can spread around the world in seconds. I’m thrilled my books have followers in seven countries and growing.
My Publicist
Mary Bisbee-Beek
Mary began a publishing career in 1979 in San Francisco, California. She has been the owner and Director of Beeksbee Books, an independent publicity and marketing consulting office, 1992-2003 in St. Paul, MN. In 2003 she joined the University of Michigan Press, where she was the Director of Publicity and the Trade Marketing and Foreign Rights Manager. In 2008, she joined Literary Ventures Fund, where she worked as a marketing, publicity and foreign rights consultant with various authors, agents, and publishers. During the summer of 2010, Mary and her husband, Randall Beek, relocated to Portland, OR. In the new Pacific Northwest location, the small company READ! was born and once again Mary works independently on publicity projects with discerning authors and publishers. Mary consults with publishing clients seeking help in the areas of book publicity and marketing outreach focusing on traditional print and electronic media, including radio tours, blogging tours, and she consults on social media and website content. She will also work with the author to consider opportunities in the overseas market place. She likes to focus on fiction and creative non-fiction books. In addition, she teaches one class each year alternating between Marketing and Publicity and International Foreign Rights in the Portland State University Publishing Program.
Photo courtesy of Randall Beek
Mary Bisbee-Beek
Read!
mbisbee.beek@gmail.com
Get in Touch
Reach Out to Lou