AJ Van Belle (they/them)

I'm ending every day with my brain full because I'm doing #ADozenDystopiasAndHowToDodgeThem all day, but I feel good about:
-This book
-Future nonfiction books
-and the fiction I'll be writing next

We can’t take everyone from the States. But we should make a concerted effort to provide refugee status to trans people from the USA.

What’s happening to them there is a hate crime.

So exciting!

See the cover for Vile Lady Villains by Danai Christopoulou - Debutiful Danai Christopoulou is Greek author raised on a diet of myths and tragedies. Their writing has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize and for a Best of Small  Fictions and has appeared in Glamour, Marie ...

The US cover of Vile Lady Villains (out from Union Square & Co on May 12) has now been officially revealed and I wrote an essay in @debutiful.bsky.social about it.

Give it a read, if you will.

debutiful.net/2026/03/06/s...

StoryBundle's In Translation bundle to benefit Global Voices Lingua: Interview My primary goal was that the bundle be representative of our broader world, without a focus on the regions most already represented in collections of translation.

Check this out! Such a cool idea: 12 speculative fiction novels translated into English from languages that are underrepresented in our English libraries. So excited to read these!
lingua.globalvoices.org/2026/02/stor...

a cartoon illustration of a vault with a nuclear symbol Alt: Cartoon Cooper from Fallout being sealed into a vault with a nuclear symbol, and being revealed as a cartoon ghoul

While writing #ADozenDystopiasAndHowToDodgeThem, I've found research that may have inspired the ghouls' longevity in Fallout, and I am SO excited by this find 👀👀👀

He had grown up in a country run by politicians who sent the pilots to man the bombers to kill the babies to make the world safe for children to grow up in.

The 2026 Online Texas Writing Workshop Get Your Writing Published: March 6-7, 2026

I may be closed to queries but am still taking conference pitches! Will be taking one-on-one pitches at the 2026 (Online) Texas Writing Workshop on March 6-7. Join me! Anyone from anywhere can attend. Learn more about the virtual writers conference here:

Love a high drama and high camp combo!

Gonna be eclipsed in a few hours!

Thank you! 🌼

Thank you! 💜

Likewise! 💜 So honored to be there alongside you 🥰

Yay, congratulations both!!

Congrats to the @bsfa.bsky.social shortlist for 2025
www.bsfa.co.uk/bsfa-awards-...
Congrats @jendiagammon.bsky.social @stewarthotston.com
@drfionamoore.bsky.social @grigorylukin.bsky.social
@foxesandroses.bsky.social
@adamroberts.bsky.social
@garethlpowell.bsky.social
and all the finalists!

Thank you!! 😍

Congratulations! 🎉

Congratulations! And 11-time nominee? Wow!

The BSFA Awards shortlists are up, highlighting an array of excellent work. Do take a look, whether or not you're voting. (Especially if you're in need of an alternative to doomscrolling)
bsfa.co.uk/bsfa-awards-...

Congratulations!

Voting is open until April 3 for all BSFA members and Eastercon attendees. You can join the BSFA here: bsfa.co.uk/join-the-bsfa

And you can find my story in Augur 8.2 here: augursociety.org/augur-issue-...

Illustration from the Augur issue the story appears in, with an adult hugging a child with lake weeds in the background, and a gray fish spirit in the foreground. Text says, BSFA shortlist news! My story "Of Seagrass Fins and Slippery Fingers," Augur 8.2, is on the BSFA shortlist! A child-stealing lake spirit is no match for a mother who won't give up. BSFA members & Eastercon attendees can vote!

I'm blown away to find out that my short story "Of Seagrass Fins and Slippery Fingers" has made the British Science Fiction Association shortlist!!!

I'm so grateful for everyone who has read and loved this story! 🐟 Story 🔗 and voting info below ⬇️

Reminder that this is all out of all of our hands

We can't change the minds of those in charge at this moment

(They wouldn't listen anyway)

So however you need to cope:
Black humor, logging off, distractions- all are better than doomscrolling & catastrophizing

Breathe. Live. You're here, now. 🖤

Happy birthday!

the party that wants to require ID to vote abruptly invalidating a thousand people’s IDs overnight seems like a pretty giant flashing red light

Unfortunately, I won't be able to open to queries on March 1-5 as planned. My attention needs to go to the queries and submissions already received (lots of things I'm still excited to dive into!), and to my existing clients' work.

As always, I'll update here when things change!

One of the fun things about writing popular science is that I get to use highly technical terms like "oomph" to describe spectral radiant flux (the amount of power per unit wavelength of energy in the form of radiation such as light or heat).

#ADozenDystopiasAndHowToDodgeThem

Alysa Liu with her gold medal

"I love struggling actually. It makes me feel alive." -Alysa Liu

Get out there and start falling on your ass!

Get more from The Deadlands on Patreon a zine containing fiction, nonfiction, and poetry about Death

we are

80%

funded

(if you were curious)

80% of a skeleton cannot lift a thanksgiving turkey

80% of a liver is not enough to feed a bear

80% off is a going out of business sale

please keep us in the business of publishing death things 4 u

join us! get fiction!

👇

One of the things They don't tell you is that a lot of being creative involves wondering whether or not you're screaming into the void. And a lot more of it is realising that as long as you're screaming, that's the point. And a lot of the rest of it is working out if you're singing or screaming