Common Bonds

Genre/Age Category: Adult, Fantasy, Science-Fiction, Queer Fiction, Anthology
Publisher: Claudie Aresneault
Publication Date: June 12, 2021
Cover Artist: Laya Rose
ISBN-13 (paperback): 978-1-7753129-7-0 

Claudie Arseneault [Editor]

Claudie Arseneault is an asexual and aromantic-spectrum writer hailing from Quebec City. Her love for sprawling casts invariably turns her novels into multi-storylined wonders. Her latest, Baker Thief, explores the way romance tropes can be reimagined for aromantic characters. Claudie has previously edited another anthology, Wings of Renewal: A Solarpunk Dragons Anthology. She is a founding member of The Kraken Collective, an alliance of indies publishing queer speculative fiction, and is well-known for her undying love of squids.In the aromantic community, Claudie is best known for her database of aromantic and asexual characters and her analytical essays on aro and ace representation. This work provides her with a good overview of the current landscape of representation for these identities.

C. T. Callahan [Editor]

C.T. Callahan is a multi-racial author and editor with a passion for diverse stories. E has worked as an editor with two literary magazines and earned a bachelor’s degree in English with a focus in creative writing. Eir writing credits include a young adult novel (Plastic Wings), a short story collection (Are We Human?), a webcomic (James Wolfson the Little Queer Werewolf That Could), and contribution to the Behind the Sun, Above the Moon anthology (NineStar Press 2020). E works mostly from home, writing trade reviews (Foreword Reviews), providing sensitivity reads, and preparing art for eir next convention. 

B. R. Sanders [Editor]

B.R. Sanders is an autistic award-winning genderqueer writer who lives and works in Denver, CO, with their family and two cats. B writes fantasy novels about queer elves and short fiction about dancing planets. They founded and serve as editor-in-chief of Vulture Bones, a quarterly speculative fiction magazine that publishes work by transgender and nonbinary creators. They love drinking coffee and sleeping. B tweets @b_r_sanders. 

RoAnna Sylver [Editor]

RoAnna Sylver writes unusually hopeful dystopian stories about marginalized heroes actually surviving, triumphing, and rocking really hard. You can find those in Chameleon Moon and its associated collection of short stories, Life Within Parole, or in the Portland-queer-vampire serial, Stake Sauce. RoAnna is also a singer, blogger, voice actor and artist who lives with family and probably spends too much time playing videogames. The next amazing adventure RoAnna would like is a nap in a pile of bunnies. 

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A. Z. Louise

A.Z. Louise is a civil engineer-turned-writer of speculative things, whose conure keeps them company during the writing process. When not reading or writing, they can be found playing folk harp, knitting, or arguing with their sewing machine. Their work has been published in Strange Horizons, Fiyah, and Nightlight Podcast.

Adriana C. Grigore

Adriana C. Grigore is an Eastern European writer of fiction, with a penchant for myth- and folklore-inspired stories with maybe just a dash of sentimentality. After earning a bachelor’s degree in literature and linguistics, and a master’s in literary translations, Adriana can safely say she is fluent in perhaps 2.4 languages and still very prone to gush about storytelling for hours on end. Accordingly, she now works as an editor, and in her spare time, she murders house plants and assembles plotlines like jigsaw puzzles.

Avi Silver

Avi Silver is a queer, arospec, nonbinary author of speculative fiction. Through The Shale Project (an award-winning multimedia storytelling initiative roughly in the shape of a planet!) they have published their first novel, “Two Dark Moons”, and the web serial “Tales from a Library”. When they aren’t writing you can find them playing their baby harp, destroying the gender binary with all due flair, and perfecting their chocolate chip cookie recipe. They currently live in Toronto with their partner Sienna Tristen and a whole family of stuffed dinosaurs.

Camilla Quinn

Camilla Quinn is a Texan, born and bred. When not scribbling about men and women making googly eyes at each other’s back (and turning just in time to miss being ogled themselves), she’s busy shepherding a skittish black cat, a hyperactive corgi, and an adoring husband.

Cora Ruskin

Cora Ruskin lives in Bristol, England, where she is studying for a Masters degree in Science Communication. She is the author of the novella “The Misfortunes of Oscar Goldberg” and blogs. She is aro-ace, addicted to cheesy 80s rock music, and is constantly trying to write a detective novel.

E.H. Timms

After winning the BBC Wildlife Young Poet of the Year award, E H Timms eventually branched out into writing prose as well, with a particular focus on fantasy and a fondness for looking at old stories from new angles. They have a number of short stories published, as well as a children’s novel and a poetry collection. They now live in SW England with far too many books and a computer tethered to their elbow.

Ian Mahler

Ian Mahler is a non-binary, autistic queer author and artist. He enjoys green tea, drawing, and writing poems his friends think are ‘quite sad’.

Jeff Reynolds

Jeff is a science fiction and fantasy writer from the United States whose work has appeared in Andromeda Spaceways Magazine. Jeff works for Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Lab, home of New Horizons, Parker Solar Probe, and the newly approved Dragonfly mission to Titan. Besides graduating from Viable Paradise writers forum, as well as the Stonecoast writers’ conference, Jeff holds a Bachelor of Science degree in Simulation and Digital Entertainment from the University of Baltimore.

Jennifer Lee Rossman

Jennifer Lee Rossman is queer, disabled, and quite possibly fairy-touched. She writes science fiction and fantasy that makes her grandma say “well that’s interesting.“

Marjorie King

Marjorie King is an engineer turned full-time mom turned SciFi author. House Ravenclaw (with a little bit of Slytherin). On her website, she reviews her favorite SciFi/Fantasy books and posts pics of them on Facebook and #bookstagram. Occasionally she posts recipes on her blog too. Why not? Marjorie published her first book, Maverick Gambit, on April 2019. It’s a space heist with Firefly feels and Mission Impossible action. She can be found in the wild… literally, since she loves hiking in the National Parks across the US.

Mika Stanard

Mika Stanard is an aromantic, asexual, and autistic human from Portland, Oregon. She’s entering her senior year at Mount Holyoke College, where she studies philosophy and psychology. She loves her family and friends, riding on her adult-size kick scooter, listening to the same songs over and over, obsessing over fandoms, and, of course, writing. This is her first published work, about which fact she’s incredibly excited. She aims to contribute something positive to the world through her writing—whether that’s representation, or just entertaining someone. She hopes this will help with that.

Morgan Swim

Morgan Swim is a non-binary author living in Saint Petersburg, Florida. They have a variety of interests beyond writing, including printmaking, robotics, artificial intelligence, and house plants. Their work has appeared in ROBOT DINOSAURS! and Translunar Travelers Lounge.

Polenth Blake

Polenth Blake shares a home with millipedes, cockroaches and woodlice. They wrote a book about werecockroaches, because the only thing better than cockroaches is being able to turn into one. More can be found at their website.

Ren Oliveira

Ren Oliveira is an a-spec genderqueer Brazilian writer and aspiring artist who loves fantasy in general and elves, faeries and forest magic in particular. Xie spends most of xir time playing video games and frowning at lines of code, but sometimes xie can be found doing some actual writing for one of xir many drafts when xie is not busy coming up with even more ideas.

Rosiee Thor

Rosiee Thor began her career as a storyteller by demanding to tell her mother bedtime stories instead of the other way around. She spent her childhood reading by flashlight in the closet until she came out as queer. She lives in Oregon with a dog, two cats, and an abundance of plants. She is the author of Tarnished Are The Stars, Fire Becomes Her, The Meaning of Pride, and Life is Strange: Steph’s Story.

Syl Woo

Syl is a demiromantic and agender writer and poet. As a Singaporean, they are currently studying at Raffles Girls’ School (Secondary) and their favourite writers are Terry Pratchett and Stephanie Dogfoot.

Thomas Leonard Shaw

Thomas Leonard Shaw is a student at the University of the Philippines Diliman where he has spent the last three years learning and unlearning about the world and himself. Once a Creative Writing student and Palanca Foundation scholar, Thomas now majors in Comparative Literature, and studies what it means to be a writer and critic in this global age of cultural and artistic production. With a research interest in memory studies and the intersections between literature and nation formation, he hopes to one day teach literature and to help organize the first writing workshop in Siargao.

Vida Cruz

Vida Cruz is a Filipina fantasy and science fiction writer. Her short fiction has been published or is forthcoming from Expanded Horizons, Writers of the Future vol. 34, Lontar: The Journal of Southeast Asian Speculative Fiction, Broad Knowledge: 35 Women Up to No Good, Phantazein, and the Philippine Speculative Fiction series of anthologies. She is a 2018 Tiptree Fellow.