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I have decided to postpone the Aro Writing Awards .  I considered calling it "year zero" or a "trial run," and committing to trying harder to recruit judges next year. But the truth is, I am one person with one point of view. I feel the Aro Writing Awards need to be judged by multiple people with diverse aro experiences and diverse intersections in order to adequately reflect the aro community.  If you are interested in being a judge (reading and selecting works for shortlists to be voted on by the community) please comment or email arowritingawards@gmail.com. Time requirements are flexible as judges do not need to read ALL works in their category because we will rely on each other's notes.   In the meantime I'll keep collecting, reading, and taking notes on aro writings so we'll have a strong pool to pull from when the time comes to select shortlists for the community to vote on. The nominations form will remain open. 

Because lists of 2021 upcoming ace and aro books already exist [Rosiee Thor's 2021 list  (17 titles). Kristine Vitola's  2021 list  (36 titles)], I've decided to highlight a handful coming in 2021 that I'm excited for, and then list any 2022 and 2023 titles I could find.  Happy Reading! 2021 This Golden Flame  by Emily Victoria  (February 2021) An aroace main character and a sentient automaton sidekick are off to rescue her brother.  ARC Review [Image: The cover of  This Golden Flame. A spinning golden orb shedding tendrils and specks of light and reflecting either a room with a hanging bare lightbulb, or an outdoors space with a street lamp.]  Common Bonds: An Aromantic Speculative Anthology   (April 2021) A collection of speculative short stories and poetry featuring the platonic relationships for aromantic characters.  Goodreads   [Image: ( source ) The "common bonds" title surrounded by vines.] In the Ravenous Dark...

For November Carnvial of Aros: Commitment Last month I posted the following: "For story research / practice / curiosity ... who wants to have a DEFINE THE RELATIONSHIP conversation with me? I am curious if defining relationships would bring me more connection / happiness / calm. If so it'll be good practice for continuing doing that. My characters have to define their relationships, yet I rarely do. So fair's fair." And someone agreed. (They also agreed I could write this blog post) The Research I don't know if this is an aplatonic thing, a me thing, or an internet thing - but I have a very poor memory for interactions with individuals, instead I remember how I feel about interactions in the space or group with a decent memory of specific interactions but not who specifically was involved.  An upside of online relationships is there's a digital trail. I was able to skim through our past interactions to get a baseline for the type of interactions I enjoyed with...

Happy  Aro Tunes Thursday ! A weekly call on Aggresively Arospec's Tumbr for songs that "make you feel proudy arospec" or "you feel like claiming for the community for no particular reason." The original intention of Aro Tunes Thursday is to submit songs to Aggresively Arospec and see all the songs others submitted, but I like having the space to dig deeper.  [Image is the album cover "Called out in the Dark." There is a cube of galaxies with a red border on a black background.] Spotify link to Wonderland by Melissa Adams   "I'm not Snow White, but I'm lost inside this forest. I'm not Red Riding Hood, but I think the wolves have got me. Don't want your stilettos. I'm not not Cinderella." I'm absolutely reading into this (it's what I do) but to me this is about those who are not fairy tale characters can still have some of the experiences of fairy tale characters. Therefor, those who are not romantic (whether aroman...

Happy  Aro Tunes Thursday ! A weekly call on Aggresively Arospec's Tumbr for songs that "make you feel proudy arospec" or "you feel like claiming for the community for no particular reason." The original intention of Aro Tunes Thursday is to submit songs to Aggresively Arospec and see all the songs others submitted, but I like having the space to dig deeper.  [Video of "Mad at Disney." salem ilese wears a rapunzel length long braid and big ears.] I wasn't the first person to think of "Mad at Disney" by salem ilese for Aro Tunes Thursday.  "I'm mad at Disney, Disney They tricked me, tricked me Had me wishing on a shooting star But now I'm twenty something I still know nothing 'Bout who I am or what I'm not" This stanza made me think about how amatonormativity hurts more than aces and aros. Maybe being aroace is a smaller factor toward spending much of my twenty-somethings not knowing what I wanted. Instead, maybe ...

Happy Aro Movies Monday ! A weekly call on Aggresively Arospec's Tumbr for movies that " you identify with from an arospec perspective or the ones you think the community should avoid." The original intention of Aro Movies Monday is to submit movies to Aggresively Arospec, but I like having the space dig deeper.  [Image from The Queen's Gambit  on Netflix, a white woman with red hair and an intense stare is moving a chess piece.] This may not be a movie, but let's talk about it anyway! I assumed it was a movie, and when the credits played at the end of episode one with nothing resolved or connected, I was quite confused 😛 Reasons I connected to The Queen's Gambit When Beth is invited to a social club, all they talk about is boys and Beth feels disconnected. Beth is surrounded by men, which means she has a variety of relationships with men: quasi-romantic, sexual, adversarial, casual friends, put-your-life-back-together friends. There is a man she's enamor...

Happy  Aro Tunes Thursday ! A weekly call on Aggresively Arospec's Tumbr for songs that "make you feel proudy arospec" or "you feel like claiming for the community for no particular reason." The original intention of Aro Tunes Thursday is to submit songs to Aggresively Arospec and see all the songs others submitted. But I like to dig deeper into the lyrics and why they hold meaning to me. I make no commitment to the frequency or duration of this series. It depends on if I run across a song I'm inspired to write about. 💚 [Image: Polaris album cover. Dimly lit purple flowers against a black background.] I've been listening to "The Fire" by "Eclipses for Eyes" on repeat this week. At first it was just a song with a tempo and angst-level that fit my there's-a-US-election-with-big-and-lasting-impact-and-I-control-nothing mood. I didn't think too much about the lyrics until the refrain got stuck in my head. "The fire inside of...

For Carnival of Aros October 2020 Disclaimer: arophobia, specifically internalized arophobia I have felt. June 2020 On yet another walk, "it is better to have loved and lost" popped into my head and struck me as strictly untrue. While there were pleasantries to being in a committed pairing, such social conveniences did not make up for the lurking awareness of the hollowness of my automated reciprocation of romance and the hurt of rejection when they became aware of the disconnect. It dawned on me that defaulting to theoretically panromantic was yet another lie. I stumbled into quoiromantic and then inched myself into the deep end of plain old aro.  I begrudgingly let go of the assumption that eventually I would find my person, something would click, and all the happy romantic entrapments story after story promised me would be mine.   October 2020 I learned the Carnival of Aro's prompt was "priorities". The host asked "how important is aromanticism...

Happy Aro Tunes Thursday ! A weekly call on Aggresively Arospec's Tumbr for songs that "make you feel proudy arospec" or "you feel like claiming for the community for no particular reason." The original intention of Aro Tunes Thursday is to submit songs to Aggresively Arospec and see all the songs others submitted. But I'm in the mood to dig deep into the lyrics and why they hold meaning to me. Maybe I'll do this on future Thursdays too.  [Image: The album cover of "Fake It" by Seether. A mildly spooky face on a dark background.] Music Video for Fake It by Seether (TW: sexy dancing/clothes) I remember listening to this song during a winter break from college. I was nannying out of state, which led to a surreal out-of-my-norm repition of pushing a stroller on bright warm winter days over pristine sidewalks, shaded by tall smooth walls and seems-fake-to-me palm trees. I'd pivot the stroller around hedges and black metal fences. I'd peek t...

Check out the YouTube video of the Aromantic Aces panel I hosted for UK Ace Con 2020.  Aspec of Stardust blogged our follow-up answer here . 

Content Warnings: Aspec in-fighting, erasure, arophobia, policing expression. What is something you believe we as a community could start doing immediately to work towards certain kinds of change? [Image: a chart with two lines with upward trends, but the purple line is steeper than the green.] With Asexual Awareness on the rise, I'm sensing some Aros feel left behind - or even pushed under the bus when (as a hypothetical) an Ace emphasizes their romantic feelings, as if to say romance is the true measure of humanity, not sex, therefore I (the Ace) am human.  As an aroace, I'm watching this rift from the sidelines. So here's my quasi-objective take. [Image: a white person looking through binoculars while crouched between two stacks of books.] In defense of Allo-Aces, it is human to defend yourself against people percieving you as inhuman. It is human to grab at obvious and easily-understood evidence of your humanity. It is human not to think through who you are indirectly h...