Gaylaxicon 2025

C.M. Alongi

C.M. Alongi is a sci-fi/fantasy author and content creator from the Twin Cities. She’s best known for her TikTok series CaFae Latte. The book based on that series, Heart of Iron, releases on October 7, 2025, and her 2023 science fiction novel Citadel was nominated for a Minnesota Book Award.

When she’s not reading or writing, Alongi is playing DnD, getting tangled in yarn projects, and defending her furniture from her roommates’ evil cats.

she/her | www.cmalongi.com

Eleanor Arnason

From 1949 to 1961, Eleanor and her parents lived in “Idea House #2,” a futuristic dwelling built by the Walker Art Center. Her earliest published story appeared in New Worlds in 1972. Eleanor’s work often depicts cultural change and conflict, usually from the viewpoint of characters who cannot or will not live by their own societies’ rules.

Her novel A Woman of the Iron People won the inaugural James Tiptree Jr. Award (now the Otherwise Award) in 1991, as well as the 1992 Mythopoeic Award. Her novel Ring of Swords received the Minnesota Book Award. She won the Gaylactic Spectrum Award for Best Short Fiction for “Dapple” and the HOMer Award for her novelette Stellar Harvest. Her novels and short fiction have also been nominated for the Hugo, Nebula, World Fantasy, John W. Campbell Memorial, Philip K. Dick, Theodore Sturgeon Memorial, Locus, and Asimov’s Readers’ Poll awards.

she/her | en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eleanor_Arnason

Kelly Barnhill

Kelly Barnhill writes books. It is a strange job, but, to be fair, she is a strange woman, so perhaps it makes sense. She is a former teacher, bartender, waitress, activist, park ranger, secretary, janitor, and church-guitar-player. The sum of these experiences prepared her for exactly nothing—save for the telling of stories, which she has been doing quite happily for some time now.

She received the Newbery Medal in 2017, as well as fellowships from the Jerome Foundation, the Minnesota State Arts Board, and the McKnight Foundation. She is the winner of the World Fantasy Award, the Parents’ Choice Gold Award, the Texas Library Association Bluebonnet Award, and a Charlotte Huck Honor. She was also a finalist for the Minnesota Book Award, the Andre Norton Award, and the PEN/USA literary prize. She has appeared on both the New York Times and Indie Bestseller lists.

She is the author of the novels The Girl Who Drank the Moon, The Witch’s Boy, Iron Hearted Violet, and The Mostly True Story of Jack, as well as the novella The Unlicensed Magician.

she/her | kellybarnhill.wordpress.

Lee Brontide

Lee Brontide is an artist, author, and mental health therapist from St. Paul, Minnesota. After a decade working in indie comics, they found their voice in novels. Their works include Secondhand Origin Stories and Names in Their Blood—part of an ongoing young adult sci-fi series about family, disability, transformation, community, trauma, and queerness.

they/them | leebrontide.wixsite.com/leebrontide

Stephanie Burt

Stephanie Burt is the Donald and Katherine Loker Professor of English at Harvard, where she teaches classes on science fiction, comic books, poetry, queerness, trans identity, and (not least) Taylor Swift. Among her many books of poetry and literary criticism, the most recent are Super Gay Poems (Harvard University Press, 2025) and We Are Mermaids (Graywolf, 2022).

Ask her about the X-Men, if you dare.

she/her |
Bsky: @notquitehydepark.bsky.social
Insta: @notquitehydepark

Haddayr Copley-Woods

Haddayr is a Minneapolis-based sci-fi/fantasy writer, radio commentator, and essayist, with pieces and performances featured on Minnesota Public Radio, Apex, Story Club Minneapolis, Science Fiction & Fantasy, and Best American Erotica.

She writes dark fantasy and horror short stories. Her radio commentaries, essays, and spoken-word performances cover disability issues, community, queerness, and politics. She also wrote the advice column “The Gentle Butch” at gentlebutch.com for several years.

she/her | haddayr.com

Kyell GOld

Kyell Gold has published over forty queer books and one straight one, and has won multiple Ursa Major awards and Cóyotl Awards for his stories and novels. His acclaimed novel Out of Position co-won the Rainbow Award for Best Gay Novel of 2009. He has also worked as a publisher, editor, and instructor in the furry writing community. In 2015, he helped create RAWR, the first residential furry writing workshop, and has instructed at each of its sessions.

He lives in California, loves to travel with his partners, and can be seen at furry conventions around the world. More information about him and his books is available at http://www.kyellgold.com/. You can follow him on Mastodon at @KyellGold@furries.club and on BlueSky at @KyellGold@kyellgold.com.

e/him | www.kyellgold.com

Rachel Gold

Rachel Gold is the author of multiple award-winning queer and trans young adult novels. Their debut, Being Emily, was the first YA novel to tell the story of a transgender girl from her own perspective.

Currently an English professor at Macalester College, Rachel has a diverse writing career that includes seven years as a reporter for a regional LGBTQIA+ newspaper and fifteen years in corporate marketing. They are a nonbinary lesbian, all-around geek, and avid gamer.

they/she | rachelgold.com/

Naomi Krizer

Naomi Kritzer has been writing speculative fiction for twenty years. She is a multiple Locus and Hugo Award–winning author for both her novels and short stories. She won the Nebula in 2024 for her novelette “The Year Without Sunshine.”

Her first duology (2003), Fires of the Faithful and Turning the Storm, featured a lesbian protagonist. Her Lodestar-winning YA novel Catfishing on Cat.Net centers neurodivergent queer youth.

In Minnesota, Naomi is sometimes recognized more often for her political blogging, where she provides in-depth guides to candidates in local elections—especially down-ballot races that often go uncovered.

she/her | naomikritzer.com

JM Lee

Joe, writing as J.M. Lee, is a Minneapolis writer best known for his work within the world of Jim Henson’s The Dark Crystal, for which he has written television, novels, comics, and other official extended-universe material.

He also teaches, speaks, and writes on craft topics such as world-building, magic systems, and constructed languages, while supporting the wider writing community as an editor for queer and Chinese American diaspora themes.

His most recent novel, The Nightland Express, is a modern Western exploring countercolonialism, anticapitalism, and intersectional identity through the lens of the iconic Pony Express.

he/him | www.joeyverse.com/

Amanda Meuwissen

Amanda Meuwissen is a bisexual author with a primary focus on M/M romance. As the author of LGBT Fantasy #1 Best Seller, Coming Up for Air, paranormal romance trilogy, The Incubus Saga, and several other titles through various publishers, Amanda regularly attends local comic conventions for fun and to meet with fans, where she will often be seen in costume as one of her favorite fictional characters. She lives in Minneapolis, Minnesota, with her husband, John, and their cat, Helga.

She/her | amandameuwissen.com

Lisa Millham
(E.M. Hamill)

E.M. Hamill is a writer of queer science fiction and urban fantasy. Her work Peacemaker was a finalist in the BookLife Prize for Fiction, and her most recent novel, Whiskey and Warfare, finished fourth out of 188 entries in the Self-Published Science Fiction Blog-Off.

she/they | emhamill.wordpress.com

Kristina Milnor

Kristina Milnor is Professor of Classics and Ancient Studies at Barnard College in New York City. She is the author of two books on Ancient Roman culture and has also written articles on ancient North Africa, legal history, and Barbie®. She was briefly a historical consultant for the HBO/BBC series Rome. She regularly teaches courses on gender and sexuality in the ancient Mediterranean world, as well as on modern films that represent antiquity (ask her about 300!). In her spare time, she writes urban fantasy.

she/her | wizardstowerpress.com/authors/lyda-morehouse

Lyda Morehouse

Lyda Morehouse came out as a lesbian when Ronald Reagan was president, Act Up was staging kiss-ins, and the AIDS crisis was in full swing. Though it took nearly two decades for her first book to be published, it was in this political environment that the seeds of her debut, the Shamus Award–winning and Locus Award–nominated novel Archangel Protocol, were planted. She followed it with the rest of the five-book trilogy: Fallen Host, Messiah Node, Apocalypse Array, and Resurrection Code.

Lyda has since reinvented herself multiple times, including as best-selling paranormal author Tate Hallaway (the Garnet Lacey series, the Vampire Princess of St. Paul series, and the Alex Conner series). She has also written over a million words of anime fanfiction pseudonymously. She continues to publish, with her newest book, Welcome to Boy.net, released by Wizard’s Tower Press in 2024.

Lyda lives in St. Paul with her wife and son.

she/her | wizardstowerpress.com/authors/lyda-morehouse/

Cameron Reed

Cameron Reed is a science fiction writer and winner of the 1998 Otherwise Award (then the James Tiptree Jr. Award). She is an avid dragonfly-watcher, a moderately skilled insect photographer, and a devoted birder. After a long and complicated path through gender, she has come to rest as a nonbinary trans woman and uses the pronouns she or they. She lives with her found family in an old duplex full of books and cats.

she/they | torpublishinggroup.com/author/cameron-reed

Dax (David J.) Schwartz

Dax has published two novels—Superpowers (a Nebula finalist) and Gooseberry Bluff Community College of Magic—as well as dozens of short stories and nonfiction pieces. They are currently working on a mystery novel featuring an autistic, nonbinary detective who lives in Minneapolis, which coincidentally describes them as well.

they/them | www.penguinrandomhouse.com/authors/76766/david-j-schwartz

Adam Stemple

Adam Stemple is an award-winning author, poet, and musician. Of his first novel, Singer of Souls, SFWA Grandmaster Anne McCaffrey said, “One of the best first novels I have ever read.” Of his later works, Hugo Award–winning author Naomi Kritzer said, “No one writes bastard-son-of-a-bitch characters as brilliantly as Adam Stemple.”

Like most authors, his life experience is broad and unusual. He spent twenty years on the road with a variety of bands, playing for crowds ranging from 2 to 20,000 people. He started, ran, and sold a poker training site. He worked in a warehouse, picked corn, traded options, demoed houses, and drove pizzas for nine months in 1986—at the time the longest he had ever held a job. He drank too much and has now been sober for over fifteen years.

He published his first book at the age of sixteen, The Lullaby Songbook, for which he also arranged the music. His mother is a famous children’s book author. His children are artistic. His wife, he insists, is a better person than him in nearly all regards.

he/him | www.adamstemple.com

Watt

After years of perfectionism, Watt began creating small watercolor zines during the isolation of the COVID-19 pandemic. Tabletop RPG writing became a way to explore existential anxiety, body horror, climate change, and connection with friends. Several game jams, small zine releases, and a few Kickstarter campaigns later, Watt is still amazed by the generosity and support of the TTRPG community.

“Today I make art games that I hope will be as meaningful when you read them for the first time as when you get them to the table.”

they/them | cloudempress.com/