Gillian Fletcher writes dystopian futures and chocolate sprinkle dispatches from the Netherlands, and somehow that makes perfect sense.

It started with a stranger. A guard at the Tower of London looked at Gillian and said, simply, "It's high time to write that book you've been thinking about." So they did. Within a year, CALLED was self-published, followed almost immediately by TAUGHT. Not bad for someone who spent years convinced they couldn't write at all.

The stories haven't stopped since. Gillian's work now appears in Wrising Writers Magazine (Seven Story Publishing), The Metaworker, and The Amazine. Their work spans the dystopian sci-fi of The Algorithm of Life, the cozy mysteries of The Lost & Foundry where small-town secrets hide in plain sight, philosophical short fiction that refuses easy answers, and Immigrant Hagelslag, a monthly letter about the messy, beautiful, occasionally bewildering process of belonging somewhere new after leaving the United States. And then there's Visibilitease: queer-positive apparel and accessories for those who refuse to be subtle. Because some things are better worn loudly.

What connects all of it is a belief that belonging is a practice, not a destination. That people are not one thing. And that the most human act is to tell the truth about where we have been. That belief is also what sent Gillian back to find that guard from the Tower of London and hand-deliver a copy of CALLED to thank him for changing their life.

The journey, it turns out, is always the point.