• Hi! I'm Naseem—CHICAGOAN, PERSIAN, nonbinary trans, queer, muslim, neurodivergent, author, educator, scientist, gamer, nerd.

    An image of Naseem, laughing and bent over. They are a light-skinned West Asian person with brown hair and a headband, wearing jean shorts and a Captain America shield shirt.

    Pronouns:

    they/them/themself

    Pronunciation:

    NA-seem JAM-knee-ah

    Born to Iranian immigrants, I was raised in the North Side of Chicago. My writing has appeared in The Washington Post, Cosmopolitan, The Rumpus, The Writer's Chronicle, and other venues. I was the 2018 Bitch Media Fellow in Technology, a 2019 Lambda Literary Fellow in Young Adult Fiction, and a 2022 Otherwise Fellow, and was named the inaugural Samuel R. Delany Fellow, a 2023 Judith A. Markowitz Award winner from Lambda Literary, and a 2023 Astounding Award finalist. My debut novella, The Bruising of Qilwa (Tachyon Publications), was a finalist for the Crawford, Locus, and World Fantasy awards. My debut middle grade horror, The Glade, releases from Aladdin (Simon & Schuster) on May 27, 2025.

  • More About Me

    For official bios, please check my press kit.

    My favorite game is persona 5 royal, followed closely by dragon age 2, undertale and deltarune, and, reluctantly, fire emblem warriors: three hopes.

    I love cooking and baking, and I am always hankering for my next tattoo.

    I did my undergraduate in the biological sciences and creative writing at the University of Chicago and my biology master's at DePaul University. Until January 2017, I balanced my writing with my work as a neuroscientist, where I studied rodent models of both concussions and psychiatric disabilities. I left my neuroscience PhD program at the University of Pennsylvania after the 2016 US presidential election to pursue my lifelong love of writing full time.

    I currently work and live outside Reno, Nevada (traditional territory belonging to the Numu, Wašiw, Newe, and Nuwu peoples), where I graduated from the MFA program in fiction at the University of Nevada, Reno, and received a graduate certificate in Gender, Race, and Identity. I write speculative fiction, primarily fantasy and horror, for adults, teens, and kids. In the past, I've written journalistic nonfiction focused mainly on science and science literary, academia, social justice, and public health, and occassionally still write creative nonfiction.

    I'm represented by Erica Bauman at Aevitas Creative Management at Aevitas Creative Management.

  • An image of Naseem, a light-skinned West Asian person with curly brown hair. They're leaning against a shipping container, hands fiddling, as they look off to the side. They're wearing tombstone earrings, a green sweater, and jeans, visible from the hips-up.

    recent nonfiction

    I used to write more nonfiction than I currently do. Here are some recent pieces.

  • Last but not least, I'm also an educator!

    "Education" has a broad meaning, and I take the term "educator" to similarly encompass different modes of knowledge exchange.

    About my Teaching

    I'm available for teaching both one-off and longer writing workshops.

    • I'm the co-creator and co-lead of The Heretics' Workshop, a radical writing group in Reno, NV, run out of the Radical Cat bookstore, along with writer DC Corvino. We call ourselves heretical because we run counter to traditional academic MFAs. We host weekly writing sessions and monthly craft-focused, generative workshops; find out more about us on Instagram, @HereticsWorkshop.
    • I'm a speculative fiction faculty member at Roots. Wounds. Words., a literary organization dedicated uplifting writers of color. I've now taught two different semester-long fellowships.

    About my editing

    I no longer offer freelance editorial services. (I do, however, still offer limited slots for authenticity/sensitivity reads.)

    About my ACTIVISM

    Art is a key component of activism, and it is a key component of mine. Additionally:

    • I'm the Nevada chapter co-lead for Authors Against Book Bans. We believe in the freedom to read and the freedom to write.
    • I'm part of the steering committee of Freedom to Read Nevada, a coalition formed by Northern Nevada residents to fight for public libraries and stand against censorship attempts and book challenges. Here's why I do it.

  • Statement of Solidarity

    I stand with all people struggling against colonialism, settler colonialism, anti-migrant violence, anti-queer and anti-trans violence, and other forms of oppression.

    my newsletters contain a solidarity section with actively updated links for education and mutual aid.

    As stated by author Zeyn Joukhadar and the Radius of Arab American Writers (RAWI), with some expansion on my part:

    There is an active genocide taking place in Gaza, and the current violence in Palestine is the contination of decades of colonial violence under Israeli apartheid; I support freedom for all Palestinians and the right to Palestinian self-determination. I stand in solidarity with victims of genocide in Sudan, the Democractic Republic of the Congo, and Ethiopia, and with the Indigenous peoples in Turtle Island and abroad, including those on whose ancestral homelands I reside, the People who inhabited the Great Basin area: the Numa/Numu (Northern Paiute), the Washeshu (Washoe), the Newe (Shoshone), and the Nuwuvi (Southern Paiute) peoples; the Numa, Washeshu, and Newe peoples organizationally operate in Reno, NV, and surrounding areas as the Reno-Sparks Indian Colony. I stand in solidarity with the victims of state-sponsored violence in Iran, including women, ethnic and religious minorities, and queer people; the Afghans in Pakistan; the women of Afghanistan; Uyghur Muslims in China; and others who face oppression in their ancestral homelands and abroad. I stand firmly against anti-Blackness and recognize that police violence and all white supremacist violence must be named and opposed. These forms of violence, along with transphobic violence being legislated across the United States, endanger the lives of trans, queer, gender-nonconforming, and nonbinary people. Therefore, I wish to underscore that none of us are free until all of us are free, and that all anti-racist, liberationist, and decolonial struggles are intertwined.

    I furthermore am a proud member of Authors Against Book Bans and act as AABB's chapter co-lead for the state of Nevada, and I oppose the censorship and legislation sweeping the United States as part of right-wing, Christian nationalist agendas. If you are interested in getting involved in AABB, please reach out to me or to the organizers. We welcome all authors, indie and traditional alike, of all genres and age categories. If you're in Nevada, you can learn more about what we do at Freedom to Read Nevada here.

    User WeepingFireflys on Tumblr shared a Twitter post by @TiannaTheWriter with a list of resources regarding oppression happening worldwide, and added their own information; I've shared this below. I stand with these and other oppressed peoples worldwide.

    DR Congo - M23, Cobalt

    Darfur, Sudan - International Criminal Court, CNN, BBC (Overview); Twitter Explanation on Sudan

    Tigray - Human Rights Watch (Ethnic Cleansing Report)

    The Sámi people - IWGIA, Euronews

    Hawai'i - IWGIA, Ka Lahui Hawaii, Nation of Hawai'i on Soverignty, Rejected Apology Resolution

    Syria - Amnesty International

    Kashmir- Amnesty Summary (PDF), Wikipedia (Jammu and Kashmir), Human Rights Watch (2022)

    Iran - Human Rights Watch, Morality Police (Jina Amini - Al Jazeera, Wikipedia)

    Uyghurs - Uyghur Human Rights Project (UHRP) Q&A, Wikipedia, Al Jazeera, UN Report

    Tibetans - SaveTibet.org, United Nations

    Yazidi people - Wikipedia, United Nations, Assyrians & Yazidis, Assyrian Policy Institute, Free Yezidi

    West Papua - Free West Papua, Genocide Watch

    Yemen - Human Rights Watch (Saudi border guards kill migrants), Carrd

    Sri Lanka (Tamils) - Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch

    Afghans in Pakistan - Al Jazeera, NPR

    Armenians in Nagorno-Karabakh/Azerbaijan (Artsakh) - Global Conflict Tracker (“Nagorno-Karabakh Conflict”), Council on Foreign Relations, Human Rights Watch (Azerbaijan overview), Armenian Food Bank

    Baháʼís in Iran - Bahá'í International Community, Amnesty, Wikipedia, Minority Rights Group International

    Kafala System in the Middle East - Council on Foreign Relations, Migrant Rights

    Rohingya - Human Rights Watch, UNHCR, Al Jazeera, UNICEF

    Montagnards (Vietnam Highlands) - World Without Genocide, Montagnard Human Rights Organization (MHRO), VOA News

    Ukraine - Human Rights Watch (April 2022), Support Ukraine Now (SUN), Ukraine Website, Schools & Education (HRW),

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