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The Hour Before Morning

Three people lie in a prison cell. One is a murderer. Can his companions help him unlock the door to his own mind before his unreasoning rages claim their lives. The Hour before Morning explores a distant future in which the human heart is much the same. The Ash’torians see their conquest of the Outliers as a triumph of civilization. The Outliers see it as servitude. Their resistance takes many forms, from non-violence to terrorism. Yet one thing remains constant: compassion endures.

Women of the woods

Cover of Women of the Woods, a woman stands inside the image of a bird.

A Fabled Collective anthology of stories of magical women, featuring Arwen’s “The Rebirth of Joy,” a fairytale of grief and transformation.

Mytholog

Cover of Mytholog: leaves that look like human figures face a golden wood.

“The Worldkeeper’s Circlet.” What makes a mosquito precious?

Perdita

For centuries, the planet Perdita has warred over the proper use of high technology.  Now the West-of-Now family has crash landed on the planet, bringing with them the secrets of jae, a tech as perilous as it is powerful.  For pro-tech Ethan and anti-tech Sherayna, their actions will decide whether Perdita will enter into a new golden age or face destruction.

“Perdita is… a future of the heart and mind that we can actually hope for.” — Nye Joell Hardy, author of The Crows of Bedu.

This Present Former Glory

Cover of This Present Former Glory: An Anthology of Honest Spiritual Literature. The design is gray with a bronze bar.

This honest and sometimes irreverent anthology features a wealth of spiritual questing through a Christian lens, including Arwen’s story “The Descent of the Wind,” an exploration of an angelic fall as trauma.

Spoon Knife 4

Cover of Spoon Knife 4, featuring a person in a space suit behind a Viking style floating ship, blue with fire.

An anthology of tales where neurodivergence, queer identity, and time travel meet, featuring Arwen’s story, “Veils and Gifts,” a prequel to the film, The Eater.

Dispatches from anarres

Cover of Dispatches from Anarres. A Woman stands on cliff overlooking a red sky with a large planet, below her an odd, legged seed pod.

“In stories that range from fantasy to sci fi to realism, some of Portland’s most vital voices have come together to celebrate Le Guin’s lasting legacy and influence on that most subversive of human faculties.” Featured authors include Molly Gloss, Fonda Lee, Curtis Chen, David D. Levine, Juhea Kim, Jessie Kwak, and more. In Arwen’s “Let It Die,” a young healer from the serene, low-tech Kiri society faces the costs of tech limitation.

timeless 2

“Dive into the nostalgic feel of fairytales, but don’t get too comfortable. This mixture of fantastical twists and origin stories will leave you begging for more… Featuring stories by Charlotte Langtree, S.A. McKenzie, Barend Nieuwstraten III, Lauren Marrero, Danielle Davis, Elle Hartford, Mindi Briar, Arwen Spicer, and Liv Strom.” Arwen takes a look at Peter Pan in modern times.


Non-Fiction

Surreal Entanglements: Essays on Jeff Vandermeer’s Fiction

The Legacies of Ursula K. Le Guin: Science, Fiction, and Ethics

Cover of Surreal Entanglements, with swirling lines on a gray-green background and a horizontal red stripe.

Cover of Legacies of Ursula K. Le Guin. A pattern of concentric circles forms a background that suggests leaves or mandalas.

“This edited collection approaches the most pressing discourses of the Anthropocene and posthumanist culture through the surreal, yet instructive lens of Jeff VanderMeer’s fiction.” Includes Arwen’s “Acceptance and Continuation: Jeff VanderMeer’s Southern Reach Trilogy and Hope in the Anthropocene.”

The Legacies of Ursula K. Le Guin explores how Le Guin’s fiction and essays have built a speculative ethical practice engaging indigenous knowledge and feminism, while crafting utopias in which human and other-than-human life forms enter into new relations. ” Arwen explores Le Guin’s relation to indigenous science fiction.

Film

the Eater

A ragtag group of rebels struggle to survive when an ancient derelict spaceship devours their ship. Starring Alysse Fozmark and Joel Albrecht

the hour before morning

In an oppressive future, a murderer seeks redemption. Starring Joel Albrecht, Gregory Stanley Black, and Trisha Luna. Arwen says, “Yep, this film is amateur, but it was made with a lot of work and heart. I adore everyone who put a piece of their lives into making this.”


FanFiction

An Archive of our own

 I am a proud writer of fan fiction! The heart of narrative has always been collaborative and always will be. My fandoms include X-Men (movies), Blake’s 7, Banana Fish, Les Misérables, Trigun, Mirage of Blaze, Mushishi, Doctor Who, and others.

Arwen Spicer

Arwen Spicer

Arwen Spicer is a science fiction writer and writing teacher raised in the San Fransciso Bay Area, and Northern California will hold her heart forever, even if it turns into a desert. She wrote her doctoral dissertation on ecology in utopian science fiction and is an educator on the concept of workable utopias. Her novel The Hour before Morning was hailed as “A carefully paced, rewarding sci-fi debut” by Kirkus Indie.

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