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 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, across all ages (adult and kidlit (MG/YA) both). I also write both creative and journalistic nonfiction; for the latter, I focus mainly on science and science literary, academia, social justice, and public health. I'm represented by Erica Bauman at Aevitas Creative Management at Aevitas Creative Management.

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 December Cuccaro. We call ourselves heretical because we run counter to traditional academic MFAs and other hierarchical writing programs. We host weekly writing sessions and monthly craft-focused 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'm also the Nevada chapter lead for Authors Against Book Bans.

See my hire me page for more information about my freelance services, which includes developmental and copyediting, authenticity/sensitivity reads, and speaking events.

• I'm the managing editor and book designer at Sword & Kettle Press, a tiny press of feminist speculative writing. We've run successful Kickstarters for the Cup & Dagger Mini Speculative Chapbook series and the Hansel and Gretel chapbook Bewildered, and have recently launched our New Cosmologies Mini Chapbook Series. We host the magazine Corvid Queen for feminist fairytales in addition to our handmade books.
• I used to be (but am no longer) the managing editor at Sidequest, an independent gaming criticism website which publishes writers of marginalized genders that grew out of the. gaming vertical at WWAC. (One of the coolest (and funniest) things to have happened to me is that my Mystic Messenger Trash series on Sidequest is officially linked on the Mystic Messenger Wikipedia page.)

My favorite games are JRPGs, I love cooking and baking, and I am always hankering for my next tattoo.

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 and the Democractic Republic of the Congo, 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 organizational 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 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.

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.

• 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
• Syria - Amnesty International
• Kashmir- Amnesty Summary (PDF), Wikipedia (Jammu and Kashmir), Human Rights Watch (2022)
• Iran - Human Rights Watch, Morality Police (Mahsa/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
• 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), Dnieper River advancement (Nov. 15, 2023 - Ap News)
• Indigenous Ppl of Canada, Cambodia, Mexico, Colombia
• Libya
• Armenia Reblog 1, Armenia Reblog 2
• Armenia, Ukraine, Central African Republic, Indigenous Americans, Black ppl (US)
• Rohingya (Myanmar)
• More Hawai'i Links from @sageisnazty - Ka Lahui Hawaii, Nation of Hawai'i on Soverignty, Rejected Apology Resolution
• From @rodeodeparis: Assyrian Policy Institute, Free Yezidi
• From @is-this-a-cool-url: North American Manipur Tribal Association (NAMTA)
• From @dougielombax & compiled by @azhdakha: Assyrians & Yazidis
• West Sahara conflict