I absolutely love that queer cozies in every genre are on the rise, so I’m delighted to welcome Kat Hillis and Rosiee Thor to the site today to reveal the cover of their upcoming paranormal mystery, Dead & Breakfast, which releases October 14th from Berkley! Here’s the story:
The new vampires in town are sinking their teeth into solving a murder…
Married odd couple Arthur and Sal are totally normal. They wear sunscreen, not because the sun can kill them, but because even the undead need a skincare regimen. They eat garlic whenever they want, though it gives Sal indigestion. They can talk to creatures of the night, but only the raccoons that rifle through their garbage. Really, they don’t bite… except into delicious baked goods.
Ready to settle down and stay out of trouble, the two have opened a bed & breakfast in the idyllic, if not-so-paranormal-friendly, town of Trident Falls, Oregon. But trouble finds them when the mayor is discovered dead in their begonias with two puncture wounds in his neck. With the help of a werewolf barista, the elven town coroner, and a very human city manager, Arthur and Sal will need to prove they aren’t literally out for blood by catching a killer…
And here’s the bloodthirsty-yet-cozy cover, designed by Colleen Reinhart with art by Liam Eisenberg!
Kat Hillis is an author of queer speculative fiction full of silly jokes and twisty plots. A southerner now living in Alabama, she’s a lifelong fan of vampires, murder, and puns. When she’s not writing or reading, she’s gaming, drawing, or making handcrafted soaps.
Rosiee Thor began their career as a storyteller by demanding to tell their mother bedtime stories instead of the other way around. Now, they write stories for all ages, including young adult novels Tarnished Are The Stars and Fire Becomes Her, the picture book The Meaning of Pride, and tie-in novels for franchises like Life is Strange and Firefly. They live in Oregon with two cats, a dog, and an abundance of plants.
Kat and Rosiee live on opposite sides of the United States and like opposite parts of the writing process, but they are unified in their love of puns! After helping with each other’s books for years, they penned their first novel together: Dead & Breakfast.
Today on the site we’re headed inside Why On Earth, a YA sci-fi anthology edited by Vania Stoyanova and Rosiee Thor that just released from Page Street on Tuesday! Here’s the story:
What starts as a simple rescue mission for a crew of teen aliens to recover one of their own soon becomes an interstellar encounter no one will forget.
Captain Iona is organizing an impromptu retrieval for her brother, an undercover alien posing as a movie star. But her efforts go awry when a technical malfunction turns her heroic rescue into an unintentional invasion. With tales of disguised extraterrestrials stuck in theme parks, starship engineers hitchhiking to get home, and myth-inspired intergalactic sibling reunions, each story in this multi-author anthology explores the universal desire to be loved and understood, no matter where you come from. After all…aliens are just like us.
Edited by beloved YA author Rosiee Thor and YA talk show host Vania Stoyanova, the anthology crosses genre bounds to bring in tropes from romance and contemporary adventure with stories from Alex Brown, Beth Revis, Emily Lloyd-Jones, Eric Smith, Julian Winters, Laura Pohl, Maya Gittelman, M. K. England, Rebecca Kim Wells, and S. J. Whitby.
Author of WAKE UP, NAT & DARCY Kate Cochrane‘s YOURS FOR THE SEASON, a sapphic romance in which a former Olympic hockey player who has reluctantly returned to her home town for Christmas teams up with her childhood crush to win their town’s annual holiday contest and a fancy romantic prize, despite telling everyone “we’re just friends,” to Errin Toma at Carina Adores, for publication in fall 2025, by Paige Terlip at Andrea Brown Literary Agency (world English).
Today on the site, we’re digging inside the brand-new lesbian SFF anthology Fiery Deeps, edited by J.S. Fields and Heather Tracy! Here’s the background:
Fire is Power!
Quest to the heart of the earth, cross flaming rivers, and brave the fire with our heroes to discover unlimited strength! From fantastic underground cities, to superheroes, to magic of the forge, titanic forces of nature collide in this lesbian-centric anthology focusing on the power of women.
Contains stories by: William C. Tracy, J.S. Fields, Robin C.M. Duncan, Sara Codair, N.L. Bates, Rosiee Thor, Maya Gittelman, Heather Tracy, N. Romaine White, and Dee Lyle!
Today on the site we’re taking a peek inside The House Where Death Lives ed. by Alex Brown, a Speculative YA Fiction anthology that just released yesterday from Page Street! Here’s the gist:
A dance to the death. A girl who’s just as monstrous as H.H. Holmes. A hallway that’s constantly changing―and hungry. All of these stories exist in the same place―within the frame of a particular house that isn’t bound by the laws of time and space.
Following in the footsteps of dark/horror-filled YA anthologies like His Hideous Heart and Slasher Girls and Monster Boys, and Netflix’s ground-breaking adaptation of The Haunting of Hill House, this YA speculative fiction anthology explores how the permanence of a home can become a space of transition and change for both the inhabitants and the creatures who haunt them.
Each story in the anthology will focus on a different room in the house and feature unique takes on monsters from a wide array of cultural traditions. Whether it’s a demonic Trickster, a water-loving Rusalka, or a horrifying, baby-imitating Tiyanak, there’s bound to be something sinister lurking in the shadows.
In “Good Morning, Georgia,” we follow a teen girl named Leah who has been grounded to her attic bedroom for days when she finds that there is an entity in her vanity mirror. There were lots of fun things I wanted to try with the story – playing with perspective, trying to craft a compelling romance in only a few thousand words, taking a swing at haunted houses (which, shockingly, I haven’t done before). But I also wanted to discuss something that crops up in a lot of my work, which is the specificity of lesbian loneliness. Leah is incredibly, painfully lonely, stuck in a house that is somewhat suspended in time and place, and when she begins communicating with “Georgia” the entity (who may or may not be another teen girl) through her mirror, Leah becomes incredibly attached not just to Georgia, but to the feeling of connection with another person. When I was younger, I spent a lot of time isolating myself and communicating solely with online friendships, and as I wrote “Good Morning, Georgia,” the dynamic between Leah and Georgia began to feel very familiar to me. I hope readers identify with Leah’s story, and that the feeling of loneliness and isolation can be something that helps us find community.
“The Phantom’s Waltz” by Rosiee Thor
I’ve always been drawn to the inherent sadness and longing in horror, so with “The Phantom’s Waltz” I wanted to explore the story from the monster’s point of view. The phantom in my story is tethered to the ballroom by an agreement she made with her dance teacher, cursed to haunt the steps of anyone who dances there until she can trick a mortal into taking her place. She’s determined never to inflict her fate on anyone else, but when a teenage girl keeps coming back to practice with her in the ballroom night after night, she’s faced with the choice between a blossoming love with a mortal girl or her own freedom. I drew heavily from my own experiences in a competitive dance environment and the way that the pursuit of perfection can destroy people’s lives and relationships when writing this story. I also wanted to explore the sapphic conundrum of “do I want to be her or do I want her” with a bit of a devil’s bargain in the mix. Dance has always been a big part of my life, but it’s also been a complete horror show at times, so bringing a little queer haunting to the world of dance felt natural–it’s Jojo Siwa’s world and we’re all just dancers in it.
“Let’s Play A Game” by Shelly Page
In “Let’s Play A Game” the main character, Jayde, is having a rough summer. Her parents are going through a divorce, and her girlfriend has been missing for months. Jayde can’t remember the circumstances surrounding her girlfriend’s disappearance or decide which parent she wants to live with. Everything is uncertain. The only sure thing in Jayde’s life is the old house across the street and the voice calling to her from inside. When she finally explores the house, she meets a trickster fae who wants to play a game, but this is no ordinary game. It’s a game that uncovers the memories Jayde has lost, brings to light her fears of being boring, of being used, and ultimately, of not being enough. At its heart, my story is about the expectations put on us by our parents, partners, and peers, and finding the courage to break out of that mold, sometimes with the help of an unlikely friend (or, should I say, fae?).
“What Lies in Silence” by Justine Pucella Winans
My horror story, “What Lies in Silence” came from a place of deep grief and a complicated love of music. All through my childhood, my hero was my nonno–a true Renaissance man, who taught himself a variety of instruments and dug his own cellars for the wine he crafted and sculpted his own fountain from cement. He always supported my writing, the singing I was too afraid to do in front of others, and loved that I was an artist. I lost him before I got to share my writing with the world, because I got to share who I was with the world and with him. This story allowed me to explore that devastation and that love through my protagonist, Luce, a nonbinary teen who comes across a terrifying and vengeful strega in the music room of their house. Expanding upon lore and legend from my own family, I crafted a monster who preys on the lonely and the silent, a manifestation of how I felt when I didn’t have a voice, when the only thing I heard in the music I once loved was the vacuum sound of loss. I hope this story, while creeping readers out, will also show teens that grief may never leave us, it may always be there, lurking and striking at unexpected moments, but that the ones we love are never completely lost, and that despite everything, we live on.
“In Deep” by C.L. McCollum
Home has always included the outdoors for me, and since I grew up swimming in ponds and creeks, adding a swimming hole to our creepy property just made sense. And bringing in a gorgeous (if sinister) mystery girl swimming there for my MC? Well, that’s a little bit of wish fulfillment, I won’t lie. Still, there’s something about murky water and things hidden beneath the surface that resonates with my queer life as a bi girl: there have always been those people both in and out of our queer community who will take advantage of the ambiguity of bi and pan folks. Keeping the secrets of our own heartbreaks can feel like drowning, and I think that’s what I hoped to show with Reece.
“The Shoe” by Alex Brown
As “The Shoe,” begins, Davina is left heartbroken on her front porch after a failed promposal. Dav is convinced that she’ll be alone forever–until a mysterious girl speaks to her from the shadows. Dav and her new friend get to know each other and find that there’s the possibility of something more. If Dav wants to find love, she’ll have to get over the idea of perfection that she’s forced on her new friend. As “The Shoe” progresses, we learn that Dav’s new friend is a manananggal–a monster from Filipino folklore that’s missing her legs–and that she’s the monster in one of the stories Dav’s nanay used to tell her. While Dav is frightened of the truth at first, she learns that the stories she grew up with contained warnings for the wrong people. And that, sometimes, the monsters we’re taught to fear are the ones we need the most.
Alex Brown is a Locus Award finalist and a queer Filipino American writer who loves rooting for the Final Girl—especially if she’s a monster. Alex’s YA Horror Comedy debut, Damned If You Do, was a Junior Library Gold Standard Selection and was also placed on Taysha’s Reading List. Alex is the co-editor of Night of the Living Queers and the editor of The House Where Death Lives, a YA Horror anthology that also received the JLG Gold Standard distinction. Alex is also a literary agent and lives in the San Francisco area with her partner and their three chaotic cats.
Today on the site we’re shining the spotlight on the 2024 finalists for the Lambda Literary Award for Best Anthology! Anthologies are pretty near and dear to my heart, having edited five of them, and I’m thrilled to help showcase these editors, contributors, and volumes before the Lammy Awards take place on June 11th!
2 Trans 2 Furious: An Extremely Serious Journal of Transgender Street Racing Studies ed. by Tuck Woodstock & Niko Stratis (Rapid Onset Gender Distro / Self-published)
The ironic subtitle of this book says it all. Canadian zine 2 Trans 2 Furious is anything but “extremely serious.” And the playful descriptive copy perfectly captures the tone of this labor of fan love: “More than 40 trans writers and artists have joined forces to explore the deeper meanings of the Fast & Furious franchise (and also gender). There’s really no way to know why this exists, but it does, and you can own it!” Co-editor Niko Stratis dates her love of the franchise back to when she saw the first Fast & Furious movie “the month before trying to come out as trans for the first time.” The first print run has already sold out, but we’re holding out hope that it will be back in stock soon so everyone can enjoy this compilation of fiction and nonfiction that explores the queer subtext of the iconic street racing film saga.
Rosiee Thor and Kat Hillis‘s THE DEAD & BREAKFAST, a cozy mystery about two vampires who open a small town B&B and must prove their innocence when the local mayor shows up dead in their garden with something that looks suspiciously like puncture marks on his neck, to Michelle Vega at Berkley, in a pre-empt, in a two-book deal, by Saba Sulaiman at Talcott Notch Literary Services for Thor and Carrie Pestritto at Laura Dail Literary Agency for Hillis (world).
Today on the site I’m delighted to kick off Asexual Awareness Week with a peek inside the new anthology Being Ace, ed. by Madeline Dyer! The collection released earlier this month from Page Street, and we’re about to dig into the contributions. But first! A little more about the anthology:
Discover the infinite realms of asexual love across sci-fi, fantasy, and contemporary stories
From a wheelchair user racing to save her kidnapped girlfriend and a little mermaid who loves her sisters more than suitors, to a slayer whose virgin blood keeps attracting monsters, the stories of this anthology are anything but conventional. Whether adventuring through space, outsmarting a vengeful water spirit, or surviving haunted cemeteries, no two aces are the same in these 14 unique works that highlight asexual romance, aromantic love, and identities across the asexual spectrum.
Forward by Cody Daigle-Orians
With Stories by: Linsey Miller, Rosiee Thor, Moniza Hossain, Akemi Dawn Bowman, Emily Victoria S.J. Taylor, RoAnna Sylver, Kat Yuen, K. Hart, Jas Brown, Lara Ameen, S.E. Anderson, Anju Imura, and Madeline Dyer
“No Such Thing As Just” follows Halcion, a nonbinary ace who despite their flamboyant public persona is not out as ace to anyone in their life, and the mysterious threatening letters they begin to receive that seem to be chasing them away from their best friend. The story features examples of emotional abuse from a partner, mentions of drug use, and clear instances of manipulation. It was important for me to write this because as a writer and a person I don’t think that we can ignore the dark parts of the world. However, as with the story and its hopeful end, I want to show people that you don’t have to remove the pain or the darkness, or hide it. Light is there, even if that light looks far different than expected. People who have lived through abuse and trauma rarely see their darkness and light co-exist. I wanted to show, for all of us dark creatures out there, that it can and does, and for every other ace regardless of background to know that we don’t have to squeeze ourselves into a specific mould of love just because we think we should.
“Moonspirited” by Anju Imura
“Moonspirited” has a lot of Ghibli-esque charm to it that I didn’t quite intentionally write into, but I think was needed to balance out the rawness of its core: Grief and alienation from an aroace gaze. There is a scene in Isao Takahata’s The Tale of Princess Kaguya (2013) that stuck with me since the first time I watched it. Kaguya, a mystical foundling child taken in by a humble old couple who turns out to be from the Moon, is embraced intimately by the Emperor himself—and she rejects him. You see her revulsion, something visceral crosses her face, causing her to call for the Moon to come take her back. To me, it was asexual repulsion, the first representation of that feeling, coded and synthesised from one of Japan’s oldest science fiction stories. Are we, asexuals and aromantics, Moon People? It’s the fascination that started me into imagining deep space worlds ruled by spirits and gods, and where an aroace might be able to reflect, bravely despite all the grievance held in, who she is in a world that divides itself so easily into negative spaces of absence and want. Moonspirited has shifted and transformed since its first iteration, but I hope these ideas can still be found in spirit if not in name.
“Give up the Ghost” by Linsey Miller
“Give up the Ghost” is a story for the aces who made every plant, robot, and ghost joke before anyone else had a chance to. It features Cassandra, an ace girl who has repurposed the assumptions her town has made about her into a job only she can do—ferrying people through a haunted forest to speak to their dead loved ones in the town’s cemetery. The pay is more than good, but what she’s really after are their secrets. Someone murdered her best friend, the friend she never confessed to due to her fear of being rejected for being ace, and she’s determined to find out who before she leaves for college. This story is spooky and hopeful, and it allowed me to explore ace tropes in media. We aren’t ghosts, but sometimes we cling to what haunts us for protection. We’re self-deprecating. We say the jokes first. We force ourselves into uncomfortable situations to prove our worth or our aceness or both. This is a story about laying those ghosts to rest.
“Well Suited” by Rosiee Thor
In “Well Suited,” compulsory allonormativity takes form as a belligerent suit of armor. I was inspired by what the personification of compulsory allonormativity and compulsory heteronormativity might look like in a fantasy world where something like a human construct can really come alive. It was especially compelling to me within the context of the antagonist being of the characters’ own making. Sir Guy, the suit of armor, is created for the sole purpose of being a fake fiancé for Brindle, a young lady who must find a suitable male escort to her coming out ball. When her best friend, nonbinary wizard Fig, brings Sir Guy to life, they’re left to question whether armor is really a shield or more of a cage. This double edged sword is something that has popped up in my own experience of being ace time and time again, and I loved having the opportunity to explore it within a fantasy setting.
“The Witch of Fest Falls” by S. J. Taylor
“The Witch of Festa Falls” is a historical fantasy steeped in Norwegian folklore. Seventeen-year-old Birga is out to avenge the death of her beloved cousin Rúna. A monster in the woods took Rúna… and now it’s after other girls. Birga vows to end the creature. But there may be more than one way to mend her broken heart, and more than one heart that needs healing. I’ve become fascinated with working traditional folklore into modern fiction, playing with old tales we’ve created to explain the world to ourselves–and, ourselves to the world. Birga is able to use the traits her neighbors fear and despise most about her to fight back against a monster terrorizing her home. Bonus: Revenge via fiber arts! Come and visit the Norwegian forest with me.
“Sealights” by Emily Victoria
When I was a teen, the relationships that really defined me were those of my friends and my family. So, that’s what I wanted to write about in this story. “Sealights” is all about a young ace woman who’s been doing her best to keep her father’s legacy alive by skimming sea magic to power her town’s lighthouse. However, the sea magic is failing, and it’s not until she meets an industrious earth magic girl that she realizes the answer to all of her problems might have been there all along. I hope my stories connect with all teens who are figuring out who they are and who their friends are. And I hope everyone enjoys my little cinnamon roll characters!
“The Hazards of Pressing Play” by Lara Ameen
This story was first conceptualized in 2019 as I worked on a pitch of it with author Dana Mele for an anthology she was putting together about queer authors writing sci-fi thrillers. So, originally, this story was a sci-fi thriller. That anthology died on submission and by the time it did, I hadn’t written much of the story anyway. When I decided to use the story for Being Ace, it became a contemporary thriller and the technological/sci-fi aspects of the story were removed. The main character’s name also changed. I was also inspired by a TV drama pilot I had written and shelved in 2019, a contemporary thriller about disabled vigilantes taking down a eugenics institution. While I didn’t end up using that storyline, the main character, Violet, in “The Hazards of Pressing Play” gets her name from the main character, Violet, of that TV pilot script. As a speculative fiction writer, writing this YA thriller story for Being Ace was a new experience for me. I loved writing Violet’s determination to save her girlfriend as well as her friendship with Felix. When writing disabled characters, asexuality is usually portrayed as a negative stereotype implying that disabled people are denied bodily agency and cannot or do not experience romantic or sexual attraction. However, it is Violet’s love for her girlfriend Nova that drives the heart of the story as well as the external and internalized ableism she fights against. I view Violet’s relationship with Nova as one that is built on trust, consent, and romantic rather than sexual attraction. I wanted to show that disabled characters who are asexual can be the heroes of their own stories. I hope disabled ace readers can see a piece of themselves in Violet and in this story as a whole.
“The Mermaid’s Sister” by Moniza Hossain
I chose to do a fairytale retelling for this anthology because I’ve always wanted to do one. I chose The Little Mermaid because despite its overt heterosexuality, it is inherently a queer tale. It’s a story about doomed and illicit love, a painful reflection of Andersen’s own life as a closeted gay man. I have always found it very difficult to relate to the little mermaid. There’s just something so ridiculous about how romantic love is portrayed in the story (maybe deliberately so, since romantic love as Andersen knew it was extremely heteronormative and exclusionary). According to the sea witch, the little mermaid would only have successfully won over the prince if “he is willing to forget his father and mother” for her sake. And the mermaid on her part is more than happy to leave behind her father, her grandmother, and her five sisters for someone she has never even spoken to. When I was a kid reading the unabridged story for the first time (complete with a horrific illustration of the little mermaid turning to sea foam when she dies at the end), my sympathies lay entirely with her family. Her poor sisters gave up their hair to save her only to have her kill herself for a random man. Absolutely not! So I did a retelling with the focus firmly back where it should be — on the love between sisters — because there is more than one type of love in the world. And all love is equally important. And my little mermaid is not going to kill herself for a man, no thank you.
“No Cure for Doubt” by Jas Brown
It’s hard to be brave enough to make your own decisions when it feels like your entire life has never belonged to you. I think a lot of the time we can feel like prisoners of our trauma or disabilities, and sometimes we need somebody else to tell us that we’re allowed to choose something else. So is this story about grief or is it about forgiving yourself for the wrong you’ve done in the past and choosing to do something different going forward? Really, it’s about how love might not always be the answer (but it is the reason), and that we are all worthy of it no matter who we are or what we’ve done. Also that we deserve happy endings!
“The Third Star” by RoAnna Sylver
My story is a weird, cosmic, very queer expression of so many raw, blazing, blistering feelings at once – and it all kind of came out in a howl.
It’s about breakdowns in communication, especially from a very neurodivergent POV. Loneliness, listening, figuring out relationships (romantic, queerplatonic, polyamory, family) and their infinite beautiful varieties. Environmentalism, honoring the universe as a living thing even as we struggle to live in it. Norse myth, galactic disaster, prophecy, and gigantic-ass space wolves in all their cosmic-horror and glory. And it’s about monsters: chasing them, fearing them, becoming them – and what makes a “monster” at all.
“Nylon Bed Socks” by Madeline Dyer
In my story “Nylon Bed Socks,” Amelia is desperate to escape—both the psychiatric hospital she’s found herself in and life itself. I wanted to write an emotional examination of the inner conflict and trauma that follows acephobic violence and the disassociation this can lead to—but it was important for me to also include positive messages about healing and my main character finding those who are accepting of her asexuality too. I also chose to write this story in verse and employ a spiral plot pattern; this narrative mode allowed me to examine the rawness of emotion in a way that mirrored how Amelia’s unprocessed trauma was growing, unchecked, in her mind, and how at the end of the story, community with other ace-spec individuals helps her feel less alone. It’s ultimately a story about the power one finds in being believed and accepted—both in terms of finding others like yourself and in healing from acephobic violence.
Today on the site we’re taking a look inside Lofty Mountains ed. by J.S. Fields, an anthology of Sapphic fantasy stories that released on October 10th from Space Wizard Science Fantasy! Here’s the gist:
Look to the skies!
Brave adventurers face new relationships and adversity in all sizes, from steampunk dirigibles to harpies, giant bees to garden gnomes, and winged dinosaurs to sky pirates.
Isolated mountain peaks, clifftop cities, and battles in the sky abound in this sapphic anthology focused on overcoming challenges awaiting in the clouds.
Happy Asexual Awareness Week! I’m thrilled to be celebrating it with some great ace authors, who’ve gathered together for a roundtable moderated by author Rosiee Thor! I’ll let them take it away!
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Happy asexual awareness week! I love this week every year–not only is it an affirming celebration of people who share my identity, it’s also a great time to take a look at the growth we’ve seen in ace representation across media. This year has been an amazing year for ace books, so I sat down with a few of my favorite authors writing ace stories to talk about the state of asexual representation and what it means to them as storytellers.
Rosiee: Thank you so much for joining me today for this asexual-spectrum roundtable! I’m excited to chat with you all about ace representation, writing while ace-spec, and the future of asexual fiction. To start us off, could you each introduce yourselves and tell us a little about what you write?
Naseem: I’m psyched to be here; thanks for having us! I’m Naseem Jamnia (they/them), a nonbinary trans gray-ace Persian-Chicagoan currently living in Reno, NV. I write fantasy across the ages, but my debut novella, The Bruising of Qilwa, is adult. It’s about an aroace nonbinary refugee healer who is trying to cure a magical plague in their new home while hiding their blood magic. Heavily inspired by Dragon Age 2, Qilwa introduces my queernormative, Persian-inspired secondary world!
RoAnna: Hi y’all! Really happy and excited to be here, thank you Rosiee! So I’m RoAnna Sylver, a nonbinary gender-weird chronically ill writer/artist/musician/heathen. I write really weird queer SFF books (Chameleon Moon, Stake Sauce), and interactive fiction (Dawnfall from Choice of Games, The Great Batsby upcoming from Tales Fiction). I also have a soft spot for horror, so my next projects lean that way too. Also Naseem, your book sounds legit awesome and I want to check it out for sure. (For many reasons but also ahhh, more love for Dragon Age 2!)
Finn: So happy to have the chance to join in with this! Hi, I’m Finn (they/them), a queer disabled author and medievalist currently living in Cambridge, UK. I write all sorts of genreweird stuff, but my debut, The Butterfly Assassin, is a YA thriller about a traumatised teenage assassin trying and failing to live a normal life in a fictional closed city. And by failing, I mean she kills someone in chapter one. So, you know, doing a great job there.
Carly: Hi everyone! I’m Carly Heath (she/they) a writer, teacher, Libra and horse girl from the San Francisco Bay Area, currently living on the West Coast of the US. My debut YA novel is The Reckless Kind out now from Soho Teen and out in paperback November 1. Like me, the main character in The Reckless Kind, Asta, is hard of hearing, ace, and wants pigs not babies. I write (mostly historically-set) novels about characters who push back against the restrictions placed on them by society and I hope to inspire teens and young people to question and resist authority in all its forms.
AdriAnne: Hi all! So happy to be here. I’m a queer (panromantic gray-ace demigirl) author (she/they) of queer dark fantasy about monstrous or perceived-to-be-monstrous teens just trying to get by. I live in both Alaska and Spain (I just got back to Spain and am super jetlagged so pardon me if I make no sense), and my books are Beyond the Black Door (with a biromantic ace main character, ace love interest), In The Ravenous Dark (pansexual MC, ace side character), and the forthcoming Court of the Undying Seasons (demigirl pansexual MC, ace SCs), all published with Macmillan.
Rosiee: Yay! I’m so glad you’re all here to chat with me. Let’s jump right into it. Most of us were readers before we became writers, so I’m curious to know about your first experience was with asexual characters. Where did you first see an ace character in fiction? What was it like to see your experience reflected in a book?
RoAnna: Hmm… I believe the first ace character I ever read was either Henry from Viral Airwaves, or Hasryan in City of Strife – both by Claudie Arseneault! And highly recommended for fans of hopeful-dystopian/”solarpunk,” and sweeping fantasy, respectively. And the feeling I got was a sense of combined excitement and relief, if that makes sense? Like “oh wow thank God, someone else gets it/this is real… OH WOW THIS IS REAL!” So, really validating for myself as well. Online community is so important, but there’s also something about seeing yourself on a page, in a story, that’s just so wonderful.
Carly: I did not have anything ace-spec when I was growing up, so I think the any time I was first introduced to an ace character was when I was learning about Greek/Roman mythology and encountered Diana/Artemis who I was obsessed with for quite a while because she was not only a “virgin” goddess, but the goddess of wild animals—which I totally identify with (as someone who regularly befriends the neighborhood raccoons and possums). I was also drawn to horse girl books when I was younger—The Saddle Club and Thoroughbred series—I think because they focused more on the relationships between the characters and their horses rather than on romance.
AdriAnne: I didn’t find any ace-spec books as a kid or teen either, so the first time I came across an ace character was as an adult when I read Every Heart a Doorway by Seanan McGuire. Not only is the book an amazingly unique take on portal fantasy, but the main character is explicitly ace. I’d only recently discovered my own labels through internet research and AVEN (the Asexual Visibility and Education Network) and it made me feel so seen and not so alone. I can only imagine what it would have felt like to read this book as a teen, which is one of the reasons I wrote Beyond the Black Door–a book basically for teen-me.
Finn: I think the first book I ever read that used the word asexual on page was Quicksilver by RJ Anderson. Although the character’s experiences weren’t particularly similar to mine, since they were fairly specific to her circumstances, it was really validating to see the word in print, when before that I’d only ever seen it on Tumblr and in other online communities. Like, okay, this is a real thing, this is something that people know about. After that one, it would’ve been Radio Silence by Alice Oseman, which has a demisexual character. As someone who really struggled at university, I found that book Extremely Relatable in a lot of ways, possibly more even than Loveless, Oseman’s more recent book that deals much more directly with ace/aro experiences.
Naseem: I actually didn’t realize I was ace-spec (I’m somewhere on the demi/gray side of things) until a few years ago because of the conflation between aromanticism and asexuality. So I don’t honestly know when I first encountered ace characters, since often due to that conflation I didn’t recognize myself in those characters, if that makes sense.
Earlier this year I read We Were Restless Things by Cole Nagamatsu. Besides it being utterly beautiful, one of the main characters is a sex-repulsed ace (not aro), and while I’m sex-neutral, I really loved how Cole grappled with the character’s relationship with sex. Noemi really tries to get over her aversion to sex in order to please her partner, because she cares about her partner, and I thought that was handled with such tenderness and care, especially because these are teens who don’t necessarily have the language of healthy relationships and boundaries yet.
I also really love Kylee in the Skybound trilogy by Alex London. I was especially drawn to her because for her, it at first feels like a matter of priority rather than identity. Kylee isn’t thinking about romantic or sexual relationships because her brother is, and she needs to make sure they have enough money to put food on the table. It’s not until we get into her relationships with others that we see it’s not just a matter of responsibility but a matter of who she is, but I appreciate someone for whom such relationships just… aren’t on her radar because she has so much on her plate. Honestly, as someone who was constantly crushing on someone while being torn about all the other things I needed to do, it’s really nice to read someone who pieces together this part of herself in the midst of a war and all the other stuff going on.
Rosiee: Phew! My TBR always grows so much during these conversations! Can’t wait to read some of those. AdriAnne, you talked a bit about this, but what about the rest of you–what inspired you to write about ace characters? What has it been like to write ace-affirming books as an ace-spec author?
RoAnna: Really natural, actually – after a while, I realized that I basically write all of my characters (or at least the POV ones) as some flavor of neurodivergent, and many of them a-spec just automatically. Like that’s my brain’s default setting apparently, and it takes a bit of effort to turn it off and go “wait, how do you write sexual attraction again?” (I think a lot of ace writers are actually very good at writing sexual stuff though, because… we often have spent a lot of time pondering it from a unique perspective, ha!) So it’s partly super natural and freeing for me personally, but also the response from ace readers is always incredible, so I’m also very much writing for y’all too. I want everyone to have the feeling I mentioned last question, the “holy crap, I’m in a book!” rush of joy and relief. I obviously can’t speak for/give that to everyone, but I still want them to have it from somewhere.
Finn: I feel that about automatically writing ace characters, RoAnna… I sometimes joke that The Butterfly Assassin is not a queernorm world so much as a singlenorm world, because I accidentally forgot that people, like, have partners, and so almost every character throughout the trilogy is single. Whoops?
I didn’t really sit down to write An Asexual Assassin Novel, but that element of the book really arose from my frustration with other media, which at the time was full of sexy assassins who (a) never seemed to actually kill anybody and (b) could be distracted from their deadly missions by somebody being a bit hot. I was also frustrated that in order to get dark, complex upper YA stories, it felt like you had to have romance/sex as a major plot element, and if you wanted friendship-focused stories, well, then, back to MG for you. Not that there’s anything wrong with MG, but when I was seventeen or eighteen, I wanted a generous helping of murder and swearing, hold the sex, thanks. So I decided to write an assassin book that was “all murder, no sex”, where platonic relationships were prioritised and not treated as less important or less mature. And where the “emotionless” character wasn’t “humanised” by sexual attraction because… ew. I read too many of those; they always made me feel like an alien or a monster.
I do worry sometimes that my book is less marketable because of the lack of romance/sex (let’s be real, in marketing terms those are often treated as interchangeable!), but I’ve seen a couple of reviews where people have said they don’t normally like books without romance but didn’t feel like anything was missing from mine because they found the platonic relationships just as fulfilling. So I’m very glad that those people are giving it a chance, and that it’s speaking to them.
Naseem: Okay, I’m screaming, Finn—I need your book yesterday!!! Like RoAnna and Finn, a lot of my characters nowadays definitely sort of naturally fall under the ace spec. I started writing at a young age, and I look back on those stories and I see the ways in which things were ace but also how I tried so hard for them not to be—there were romantic partners in my stories, but I didn’t know how to grapple with sexual desire because I didn’t understand how that was separate from romantic desire.
Nowadays, I have to choose to write a main character who experiences sexual attraction and hope that they… come off as realistic?? The novel I’m about to turn into my agent has three POV characters—a demisexual lesbian who suddenly finds herself in love with a boy; an asexual aro-questioning/demi-aro anxious bean (aka the boy) who’s been in love with his best friend but has denied it and Suddenly Now Has A Crush On Someone Else, aka the demisexual lesbian; and aforementioned best friend, an allosexual enby who doesn’t understand the difference between romantic and platonic attraction but doesn’t think they experience romantic attraction, but does want to sleep with the people they care about. (Love triangle that resolves in polyamory, anyone??) Anyway, it’s been a TIME trying to get the aromantic and allosexual components down. Since all of my secondary worlds are queernormative, these conversations in the story happen differently than they do in real life, because the surrounding context is different. But I hope they still hit home.
AdriAnne: First off, WHEW, I also need The Butterfly Assassin! Anyway, writing an ace character didn’t come naturally to me at first because when I first began to write, I assumed everyone wanted characters who experienced sexual attraction. Realizing who I was and the breadth of possibility out there was eye-opening. (I, too, despite being married, have been baffled by the relationship between attraction and sex for a long while, but just figured I was “weird” and sexual attraction was “normal”–you can see that therapy also helped me.) So while there are many more ace books around now (YAY!), what first inspired me to write ace characters is that I didn’t often see myself reflected on the page. It felt very affirming to write Beyond the Black Door especially, where the MC Kamai is a sex-repulsed ace but also biromantic and interested in romance like I was as a teen. It’s confusing for her, and her journey from confusion and doubt and into wholeness and confidence in herself healed something within me. It was very cathartic. (And YAY for relationship resolutions that involve polyamory and ace folks! I did this in In the Ravenous Dark.)
Carly:The Reckless Kind was a book where I was just learning how to write, so I think it was also a book where I was figuring out my identity through Asta. The first draft was like—I want this girl to have very meaningful, close non-sexual relationships with these boys she loves… and then in later drafts I was realizing “oh, she’s ace” and then now I’m starting to realize “oh, she’s aro.” Like, I think society puts so much pressure on people to believe any type of closeness is sexual or romantic, and in writing and rewriting the book I sort of unpacked a lot of that baggage both in my characters and in myself. The followup books I’ve been writing do feature romances and allo main characters, but I also wanted them to be ace-positive so in many cases they have important relationships with ace characters and their interactions are very affirming. Like I have one character who’s in a romantic relationship with an ace boy and he pushes back against those “it’s not a real relationship if you’re not having sex” sorts of statements. And in the adult romance I’m writing, the main character has a relationship with a woman who’s aro and curious about some types of sex but repulsed by nudity and other types of sex and the conversations they have around those topics and consent are super important. I’d really like to see more characters in media and literature who reflect the reality of the spectrum of human sexuality and nuances of different types of relationships.
Rosiee: I love how much common ground you all have here! That’s the cool thing about the ace community and identity. But the asexual experience isn’t just one thing–we all experience this identity in different ways. So, what are some ace experiences you’d like to see more of in fiction?
Naseem: A lot of people conflate being aromantic with being ace, so I’d definitely like to see characters with all kinds of nuanced ace (and other!) identities. Not all asexual people are sex-repulsed, and some asexual people have sexual partners, and I imagine the same can be for aromantic-spec people—so let’s see the range!
RoAnna: Oh wow definitely seconding Naseem here. I want to see all the intersections and interactions between identities – trans aces, aro and allo aces, sex positive and negative and neutral aces, aces of color, disabled and neurodivergent aces – all of them! I also have a special soft spot for polyamorous narratives, and love to see navigation and negotiations there, between both people and identities. This is something I really got into in Stake Sauce Book 2, which is largely about Jude (our gray-ace, demi-aro and disabled/autistic trans guy MC) figuring out his feelings for several partners. Amid the Vampire Drama, he’s also sorting out which attractions are sexual, or romantic, or neither, and how it’s all rolled together with neurodivergence… it was a complicated, cathartic, fascinating, and deeply personal story to write. And also has queerplatonic witchy girlfriends, and cute chubby punk vampire boys, if y’all are into that.
Finn: I’d echo what the others have said about the range of ace attitudes towards romantic and sexual relationships. And I’d definitely like to see more books that explore the overlap between ace, trans, and disabled identities. Like, for me, so many of my feelings about my body are bound up in all of those things, and they can never be fully separated. On a related note, I think it’s also important to explore how things like trauma can impact on our sense of identity and self (and how that doesn’t negate the identity) – this is something I’m exploring a bit in the sequel to The Butterfly Assassin, but there are infinite angles somebody could take on this, looking at how we’re shaped by our experiences.
I think I’d like to see somebody explore faith and asexuality, too, though it’s not a topic I think I personally could do justice. I’ve left my childhood church behind, but having grown up in an evangelical Christian environment where things like sex were wreathed in shame and guilt, there was a lot I had to process and work through before I could separate my asexuality from that shame and work out how I actually felt, all while also having a gender crisis (which I also felt guilty about). I imagine it would feel quite healing and cathartic to read a book that grappled with that – as long as it did it well!
Naseem: I’m once again screaming that I haven’t read all of your books already, because I need them desperately!! And severely want to echo what Finn said about the intersection of these identities and also trauma—the way I feel about my body is directly tied to both my gender as a nonbinary trans person and the way I inhabit my body as a fat person and someone with a history of eating disorders, among other things.
One thing that’s been frustrating for me is how many fellow aces conflate ace and aro identities. I mean, you identify how you identify, but just within the last few weeks I’ve talked to several people who have ID’d as ace, and when I’m like oh I’m ace too, we talk some more and I realize while they may also be ace, they really are talking about being aro. (Which is 10000% valid!) So more representation that dives into the nuances of these identities can only be a good thing for all of us! People who object to labels don’t, I think, understand the power they can have when we choose those labels for ourselves. It’s partially about finding other like-minded individuals but more about how we learn to describe ourselves.
Carly: I share what you’ve all said about just wanting more diverse representation. The world is full of a multitude of identities and experiences, but for centuries in Western literature only the heteronormative identities got amplified. We need to bring reality back into fiction and the reality is that the heteronormative experience is just one small part of humanity. I’d also just love to see more allos affirming and respecting their ace/aro partners, especially in mainstream media.
AdriAnne: Echoing what others have said, as well! Even within myself I’ve experienced being ace differently. I’ve run the gamut from sex-repulsed as a teen to sex-neutral and sex-positive as an adult, after learning much more about myself and what I find appealing. (I’m one of those aces with a sexual partner.) My gender-feels can also impact how I see sex–and yes, so can trauma, which I’ve experienced as a child and as an adult. So I too would love to see all the ace intersections because no one iteration is “correct” or any one “wrong.” While I’ve written the more common ace/aro combination, I wrote Beyond the Black Door for my teen self when I was sex-repulsed and yet romantic, and have also written a nonbinary, poly, and ace character in In the Ravenous Dark. I would love to see more alloromantic and/or sex-neurtral and sex-positive aces out there, as well as how asexuality intersects with everything from gender to race to trauma to kink to neurodivergent identities and to all other forms of queerness.
Rosiee: Yes to all of that! Here’s to more varied ace experiences in literature going forward–and what about the books that do exist right now? What is a recent read, an upcoming book, or even an old favorite with asexual representation that you wish more people knew about?
RoAnna: An old fave (and auto-rec) is the Mangoverse series by Shira Glassman (starting with The Second Mango) – Rivka is a hetero-romantic demisexual and super-hot masked swordswoman, who gets to protect adorable princesses and also her bf is a dragon (and also super hot in human form). Is the book-crush coming through? Because wow. <3 Also may I say Tarnished Are the Stars? 😀 Because I just… really love Nathaniel still! On the more steamy/erotica side, I will still always rec Nine of Swords, Reversed and Eight Kinky Nights by my dear, always-beloved Corey (as Xan West), for many reasons but primarily their just mindblowingly-inclusive/positive/warm rep for kinky aces, as well as Jewish trans, disabled, fat, queer, so many kinds of people, they’re all welcome here. And an upcoming release that I’m a bit obsessed with is The Story of the Hundred Promises by Neil Cochrane. Lush, wonderful fantasy with so much a-spec, trans, and polyam rep, so much!
Naseem: RoAnna, you keep mentioning books that grow my TBR, and I already have so many books on that pile, so… thanks I think?? At least Tarnished Are The Stars has been on my shelf for a while, since I always try to buy my friends’ books. I want to again point to the books I mentioned above, We Were Restless Things and the Skybound saga, and also The Circus Infinite by Khan Wong, whose main character is a queer ace.
AdriAnne: I will always shout about the aforementioned Every Heart a Doorway and Tarnished are the Stars <3 but a recent read I really loved was What We Devour by Linsey Miller for the ace protag and the deliciously dark relationship therein.
Carly: Seconding what everyone has said about Tarnished Are The Stars. Get it if you want great YA, steampunk style SFF and awesome on-the-page ace discussion. Another favorite which I feel like not enough people know about is The Rat-Catcher’s Daughter by KJ Charles which is just the sweetest, most-endearing and delightful ace romance between trans music hall singer and a man who’s a fence for notorious criminals. They’re both ace and absolutely adorable to each other. It’s probably my favorite ace romance of all time.
Finn: Doing this roundtable has made me really want to reread Quicksilver and see if it holds up after all these years, because it’s ages since I read it, and it’s not a very well-known one. (It’s a sequel – book one is called Ultraviolet – but I actually read it first, and that was mostly fine.) Unfortunately, my copy is at my parents’ house, and I am not, so I can only rec this with the caveat of me not having read it since about 2013 and I take no responsibility for anything I might have forgotten about it that would make me hesitate if I remembered it. I love VE Schwab’s Vicious and Vengeful, which have ace-spec characters, but I would say those are probably not under the radar these days, since V’s work has taken off so much. I’m super behind on recent releases generally, so I’m excited to add lots more books to my TBR after this!
Rosiee: Aww thanks for the shoutouts, everyone! Now it’s your turn–you’re all amazing authors writing important stories. Tell us one or two things about one of your books that makes your ace heart happy! Plug your work
Carly: If you’ve ever wanted to escape to the mountains with your two best friends and a bunch of adorable animals, The Reckless Kind is the book for you.
AdriAnne: Since Kamai in Beyond the Black Door is my only ace MC thus far, I’ll plug that book even though it’s the oldest! It’s a dark fantasy with a darkly romantic relationship at the center. Kamai is a soulwalker, someone who can explore other people’s souls, and while doing so she discovers a deadly force trying to break into her world–a someone she might be more fascinated with than horrified, and she has to decide where her heart lies. My other books only have ace side characters, but I adore them: Japha in In The Ravenous Dark is nonbinary (they/them), ace, and also poly; and Claudia in my forthcoming Court of the Undying Seasons is aro/ace (and a vampire).
RoAnna: Oh boy, self-promo, everyone’s favorite! (/Big Sarcasm) I’m still trying to get better at this – and it’s important, because I DO have a really cool thing coming up! Chameleon Moon was my first published book, and it features Regan, a very soft and anxious dragon boy (but always green and scaly, not shapeshifting), who has to navigate a dystopian, permanently-burning city full of super-people (all very queer/disabled/polyam), and also his own traumatized brain. In the process he figures out that he’s asexual (and PTSD, and definitely ND too, but I wasn’t consciously writing that yet), and finds healing and strength through found family/queer community – it’s a weird book, but still very important to me, and probably my best-known.
And, FURTHER SELF PLUG – it’ll soon be an audiobook! (With the best narrator ever, Kyle Rocco East, though I’m definitely biased lol). I’m running a Kickstarter that features not only the audiobook, but special edition hardcovers, exclusive art/merch, actual original songs, and So Much More! https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/roannasylver/chameleon-moon-the-audiobook I’m ridiculously excited about this, and hope it sounds cool to y’all too! THANK YOU so much again!
Finn:The Butterfly Assassin is always a weird one to plug for queer rep of any kind, because it’s… it’s subtle. Isabel spends most of the book trying very hard not to die, she has got trauma coming out of her ears, and she is absolutely not in a position to be analysing her own sexuality, which means there’s not a lot of on-page discussion of it. Instead, the book’s ace/aro heart comes from the fact that I had dozens of opportunities for the plot to develop in romantic/sexual directions, and decided not to take them, instead foregrounding the various kinds of platonic relationships that Isabel forms. Thus, it is the All Murder, No Sex assassin book that teen me wanted. In the sequel, which comes out in the UK next May, Isabel’s in a much more stable position and she’s safe enough to start exploring her sense of self a bit more. She also finally has people her own age around her, and the result is that we get to see a lot more on-page queerness, which I’m really excited about.
Naseem:The Bruising of Qilwa has been out for about a month (it’s available in World English territories), and the audiobook comes out November 8! The world is queernormative (which also means transnormative), and I’ve got a list of both content notes and rep notes on my website, but the main character is explicitly aroace and nonbinary trans. While it’s a standalone, I’m writing more in this world (the novel I mentioned above is set 40 years after the events of Qilwa), so more to come! Any love for my little book, whether you can afford to pick it up or get it from your local library, is much appreciated!!
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Carly Heath (she/they) earned her BA from San Francisco State University and her MFA from Chapman University. Originally from the San Francisco Bay Area, Carly teaches design, art, theater, and writing for various colleges and universities. Her debut, The Reckless Kind (Soho Teen) is winner of the 2021-2022 Whippoorwhill Award and has garnered enthusiastic reviews (including a starred review from BCCB) for its nuanced depiction of queer and disabled identities.
Naseem Jamnia is a Persian-Chicagoan, former scientist, and the author of The Bruising of Qilwa (Tachyon Publications). Their work has appeared in The Washington Post, Cosmopolitan, The Rumpus, and other venues, and they’ve received fellowships from Bitch Media, Lambda Literary, and Otherwise. Named the inaugural Samuel R. Delany Fellow, Naseem lives in Reno, NV, with their husband, dog, and two cats. Find out more at www.naseemjamnia.com or @jamsternazzy on social media.
Finn Longman is a queer disabled writer and medievalist, originally from London. With a degree in Anglo-Saxon, Norse and Celtic and an MA in Early and Medieval Irish, they spend most of their time having extremely niche opinions on the internet. They write YA and Adult novels, and have a particular interest in genre-bending fiction that explores identity and tests moral boundaries.
A.M. Strickland was a bibliophile who wanted to be an author before she knew what either of those words meant. She shares a home base in Alaska with her spouse, her pugs, and her piles and piles of books. She loves traveling, dancing, tattoos, and writing about monstrous teens. Her books include Beyond the Black Door, In the Ravenous Dark and Court of the Undying Seasons. She uses both she/her and they/them pronouns, and you can find her on Twitter and Instagram.
RoAnna Sylver is the author of the Chameleon Moon and Stake Sauce series, as well as interactive fiction like Dawnfall and The Great Batsby – and passionate about stories that give hope, healing and even fun for LGBQTIA+, disabled and other marginalized people, and thinks we need a lot more. RoAnna is a member of the SFWA as well as a founding member of Kraken Collective Books, and highly recommends you check them out.
Rosiee Thor began their career as a storyteller by demanding to tell their mother bedtime stories instead of the other way around. They spent their childhood reading by flashlight in the closet until they came out as queer. They live in Oregon with a dog, two cats, and an abundance of plants. They are the author of Young Adult novels Tarnished Are The Stars and Fire Becomes Her and the picture book The Meaning of Pride.
Kat Hillis is an author of queer speculative fiction full of silly jokes and twisty plots. A southerner now living in Alabama, she’s a lifelong fan of vampires, murder, and puns. When she’s not writing or reading, she’s gaming, drawing, or making handcrafted soaps.
Rosiee Thor began their career as a storyteller by demanding to tell their mother bedtime stories instead of the other way around. Now, they write stories for all ages, including young adult novels Tarnished Are The Stars and Fire Becomes Her, the picture book The Meaning of Pride, and tie-in novels for franchises like Life is Strange and Firefly. They live in Oregon with two cats, a dog, and an abundance of plants.
What starts as a simple rescue mission for a crew of teen aliens to recover one of their own soon becomes an interstellar encounter no one will forget.
Fire is Power!
A dance to the death. A girl who’s just as monstrous as H.H. Holmes. A hallway that’s constantly changing―and hungry. All of these stories exist in the same place―within the frame of a particular house that isn’t bound by the laws of time and space.
The ironic subtitle of this book says it all. Canadian zine 2 Trans 2 Furious is anything but “extremely serious.” And the playful descriptive copy perfectly captures the tone of this labor of fan love: “More than 40 trans writers and artists have joined forces to explore the deeper meanings of the Fast & Furious franchise (and also gender). There’s really no way to know why this exists, but it does, and you can own it!” Co-editor Niko Stratis dates her love of the franchise back to when she saw the first Fast & Furious movie “the month before trying to come out as trans for the first time.” The first print run has already sold out, but we’re holding out hope that it will be back in stock soon so everyone can enjoy this compilation of fiction and nonfiction that explores the queer subtext of the iconic street racing film saga.
Discover the infinite realms of asexual love across sci-fi, fantasy, and contemporary stories
Look to the skies!
Naseem: I’m psyched to be here; thanks for having us! I’m Naseem Jamnia (they/them), a nonbinary trans gray-ace Persian-Chicagoan currently living in Reno, NV. I write fantasy across the ages, but my debut novella, 
RoAnna: Hi y’all! Really happy and excited to be here, thank you Rosiee! So I’m RoAnna Sylver, a nonbinary gender-weird chronically ill writer/artist/musician/heathen. I write really weird queer SFF books (
Finn: I feel that about automatically writing ace characters, RoAnna… I sometimes joke that 
Carly: 
RoAnna: Oh wow definitely seconding Naseem here. I want to see all the intersections and interactions between identities – trans aces, aro and allo aces, sex positive and negative and neutral aces, aces of color, disabled and neurodivergent aces – all of them! I also have a special soft spot for polyamorous narratives, and love to see navigation and negotiations there, between both people and identities. This is something I really got into in 
AdriAnne: Echoing what others have said, as well! Even within myself I’ve experienced being ace differently. I’ve run the gamut from sex-repulsed as a teen to sex-neutral and sex-positive as an adult, after learning much more about myself and what I find appealing. (I’m one of those aces with a sexual partner.) My gender-feels can also impact how I see sex–and yes, so can trauma, which I’ve experienced as a child and as an adult. So I too would love to see all the ace intersections because no one iteration is “correct” or any one “wrong.” While I’ve written the more common ace/aro combination, I wrote 
Carly Heath (she/they) earned her BA from San Francisco State University and her MFA from Chapman University. Originally from the San Francisco Bay Area, Carly teaches design, art, theater, and writing for various colleges and universities. Her debut, 
Finn Longman is a queer disabled writer and medievalist, originally from London. With a degree in Anglo-Saxon, Norse and Celtic and an MA in Early and Medieval Irish, they spend most of their time having extremely niche opinions on the internet. They write YA and Adult novels, and have a particular interest in genre-bending fiction that explores identity and tests moral boundaries.
A.M. Strickland was a bibliophile who wanted to be an author before she knew what either of those words meant. She shares a home base in Alaska with her spouse, her pugs, and her piles and piles of books. She loves traveling, dancing, tattoos, and writing about monstrous teens. Her books include 
RoAnna Sylver is the author of the