AJ Odasso

AJ Odasso is an editor, educator, and writer currently living in the Four Corners region of the American Southwest. They have been editing and writing for over twenty years and working in higher education internationally and in the US for over a decade.

AJ's full-length poetry collection, The Sting of It, was published by Tolsun Books in 2019 and won Best LGBT Book in the New Mexico/Arizona Book Awards. Their novel, The Pursued and the Pursuing, was published by DartFrog Blue in 2021 and won second place in the Adult Historical Fiction category of the Reads Rainbow Awards. They have served as Senior Poetry Editor at Strange Horizons magazine since 2012, for which they are a six-time Hugo Award Finalist (2013, 2014, 2016, 2018, 2020, and 2022).

AJ holds an MFA in Creative Writing from Boston University and is a member of the full-time English faculty at San Juan College. They are also a current PhD Candidate in Rhetoric & Writing in the Department of Language and Literature at University of New Mexico. Their research is focused around support for LGBTQIA2S+ students and implementation of disability accommodations in the composition classroom.

AJ is a member of the Reform Jewish movement. An Autistic and intersex activist, they also identify as a nonbinary member of the trans community. They have published work and served as a speaker on issues relevant to these communities.

AJ is represented by Lucy Cleland, Principal Agent​, at Calligraph Literary Agency.