Today on the site I’m delighted to reveal the cover of Being Aro: A Collection of Aromantic Fiction About Love, Connection, and Empowerment ed. by Madeline Dyer and Rosiee Thor, a YA anthology releasing May 26, 2026 from Page Street YA! Here’s the gist:
Explore expansive aromantic love and connection in stories across genres
These twelve stories showcase aromantic people breaking generational curses, finding acceptance, and protecting the vulnerable while highlighting the infinite ways people find connection and love without romance.
A high school matchmaker learns a lesson about love. A rebellious spaceship pilot defies his culture’s compulsory coupling. A boy magically transforms banned romance novels into living dragons. A teen immune to romance, and the zombie virus, fights to survive the apocalypse. Being Aro is full of stories throughout real and imagined worlds that cross genres and disrupt the status quo.
Contributors include a mixture of established and emerging YA writers, such as Lammy Award-finalist Madeline Dyer, Lammy Award-nominated Rosiee Thor, USA Today bestselling Kemi Ashing-Giwa, and NYT bestselling authors Kalyn Josephson and Laura Pohl.
And here’s the aro-tastic cover, designed by Rosie Stewart and illustrated by Sam Prentice-Jones!
Fourteen acclaimed authors showcase the beautiful and diverse ways holidays are observed in this festive anthology. Keep the celebrations going all year long with this captivating and joyful read!
JJ Clapton is a queer, autistic writer of science fiction and fantasy across multiple age ranges. Originally from London, she grew up retreating from life into the stories in her head. When she became sick with a chronic illness as a teen, she relied on the stories to help her escape. After more than half her life spent somewhere between housebound and bedbound, stories have been a constant companion and light even in the hardest of times. JJ loves to write stories in which characters like her exist and have adventures even if she doesn’t get to have many herself. Apart from being an avid reader, she loves craft, watching sports, and stimming to music. She now lives in Lanzarote where she enjoys meowing at all the local cats (of which there are many!). And has a lovely, vicious, cute little cat of her own called Rocky.
Iris Galacia’s tarot cards do more than entertain gamblers.![Every Bird a Prince by [Jenn Reese]](https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/51G+Mo44HnL.jpg)
The only time Eren Evers feels like herself is when she’s on her bike, racing through the deep woods. While so much of her life at home and at school is flying out of control, the muddy trails and the sting of wind in her face are familiar comforts.
Sixteen-year-old Georgia Richter feels conflicted about the funeral home her parents run―especially because she has the ability to summon ghosts. 
Trained and traumatised by a secret assassin programme for minors, Isabel Ryans wants nothing more than to be a normal civilian. After running away from home, she has a new name, a new life and a new friend, Emma, and for the first time in Isabel’s life, things are looking up.![Sounds Fake But Okay: An Asexual and Aromantic Perspective on Love, Relationships, Sex, and Pretty Much Anything Else by [Sarah Costello, Kayla Kaszyca]](https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/4183WzV96mL.jpg)
True Love. Third Wheels. Dick pics. ‘Dying alone’. Who decided this was normal?
The Rusel family is famous throughout Enderlain as breeders of enchanted horses, but their prestige is no match for their rising debts. To save her family’s ranch, Mikira Rusel is left with only one option: enter the Illinir, a cutthroat, cross-country horserace known for its high death rate as much as its flashy prize money.
Emily Victoria is a Canadian prairie girl who writes young adult science fiction and fantasy. When not word-smithing, she likes walking her over-excitable dog, drinking far too much tea, and crocheting things she no longer has the space to store. Her librarian degree has allowed her to work at a library and take home far too many books.
Flare is power.
Orphaned and forced to serve her country’s ruling group of scribes, Karis wants nothing more than to find her brother, long ago shipped away. But family bonds don’t matter to the Scriptorium, whose sole focus is unlocking the magic of an ancient automaton army.
Common Bonds is an upcoming anthology of speculative short stories and poetry featuring aromantic characters. At the heart of this collection are the bonds that impact our lives from beginning to end: platonic relationships. Within this anthology, a cursed seamstress finds comfort in the presence of a witch, teams of demon hunters work with their rival to save one of their own, a peculiar scholar gets attached to those he was meant to study, and queerplatonic shopkeepers guide their pupil as they explore their relationship needs and desires. Through nineteen stories and poems, Common Bonds explores the ways platonic relationships enrich our lives.
A poetry collection about the mythic life of Artemis, Greek Goddess of the hunt. Told through the perspective of Artemis herself with the contributions of a few other Greek Goddesses. This collection reimagines and follows Artemis navigating her lifelong vow of chastity and, rather than suffering through it, owning it as a facet of her aromanticism and asexuality. Immerse yourself in a cultivated tempest of poems illustrating Artemis as a warrior, whose shoulders have known an excessive weight of responsibility, and who always fights to remain her authentic self among people who would change her.
Dexter meets This Savage Song in this dark fantasy about a girl who sells magical body parts on the black market — until she’s betrayed.
Paige has always been scared to be herself. The real Paige- the nerdy Paige- who just wants to have real friends, talk about anime, lose her virginity, and share her art- doesn’t exist at school or to her friends. Only quiet Paige does.
A Maiden, a Fox, and a long journey home.
A gender-confused farmer desperate to reclaim her farm and escape her stepparents’ abuse. A closeted prince more interested in helping his people than finding a bride. A fairy godfather with a ton of secrets and no powers. In this diverse fairy tale, everyone is searching for a happy ending.
“It’s not every day you get to put the fear of Medusa into a god.”
Like everyone else she knows, Mallory is an orphan of the corporate war. As a child, she lost her parents, her home, and her entire building in an airstrike. As an adult, she lives in a cramped hotel room with eight other people, all of them working multiple jobs to try to afford water and make ends meet. And the job she’s best at is streaming a popular VR war game. The best part of the game isn’t killing enemy combatants, though—it’s catching in-game glimpses of SpecOps operatives, celebrity supersoldiers grown and owned by Stellaxis, the corporation that runs the America she lives in.
Every time something goes missing from the village, Sir Violet, the local knight, makes his way to the dragon’s cave and negotiates the item’s return. It’s annoying, but at least the dragon is polite.
Minerva Cerridwen is a genderqueer aromantic asexual writer and pharmacist from Belgium. She enjoys baking, drawing and handlettering.