A. E. Osworth

Instructor & Writer

A. E. Osworth is part-time Faculty at The New School, where they teach undergraduates the art of digital storytelling. Their novel, We Are Watching Eliza Bright, about a game developer dealing with harassment (and narrated collectively by a fictional subreddit) was long listed for The Center for Fiction First Novel Prize. They have an eight-year freelancing career and you can find their work on Autostraddle, Guernica, Quartz, Electric Lit, Paper Darts, Mashable, and drDoctor, among others.

Classes

view 10 past classes »

Stories

Cover Photo: Photograph by Tiffany Tertipes/Unsplash

On Grifters

Everyone deserves to have a seat at the table, and that seat can’t be tricked away from us by some faithless cis white politician’s grift. At least it shouldn’t be.

Dec 22, 2022

Catapult | Year In Review

Cover Photo: This photograph shows a person standing on a large rock at the edge of the ocean, waves crashing below them.

What, Exactly, Is Queer Literature?

Once I gave queer authors the keys and stopped worrying about what, exactly, queer literature meant, my students’ work taught me something about what queer literature actually is: a lens on the world.

Nov 30, 2022

Don’t Write Alone | Notes From Class

Cover Photo: A green spiraly ribbon

After the Green Ribbon

The story of the girl with the green ribbon was once a generic tale of horror. Now, it is about about gender.

Feb 01, 2022

Columns | Scaring Children

Cover Photo: This photograph shows a blue miniature Lego Doctor Who TARDIS sitting on a patch of grass. It's a bright sunny day and the sky behind the TARDIS is clear and blue.

Creating Scenes for Discovery

Storytelling is like the TARDIS in ‘Doctor Who’—the narrower and more specific we get on the outside, the bigger it gets on the inside.

Jan 12, 2022

Don’t Write Alone | Free Write

Cover Photo: A detail from the movie poster for "The Omen," depicting a small child whose shadow takes the shape of a cross

I Didn’t Want to Miss Baby Night

Children appear in horror all the time because to parent one is naturally terrifying.

Oct 25, 2021

Columns | Scaring Children

Cover Photo: A book cover from the Goosebumps series: a tent in the terrifying woods at night; a creature with glowing eyes prowls about the tent's opening

Ingredients of a Goosebump

All the things I would have shielded my younger self from, they crop up in books, too. And they are not the monsters with the glowing eyes.

Sep 16, 2021

Columns | Scaring Children

Cover Photo: A detail from the movie poster for the film Beetlejuice, depicting the titular character with a bride and a decapitated groom

The Handbook for the Recently Deceased

In the film ‘Beetlejuice’, death is exaggeration. To die is to become a different size, to be viewed as grotesque by an outside observer.

Jul 20, 2021

Columns | Scaring Children

Cover Photo: close-up photograph of a pencil, a marker, and several multicolored Post-it notes on a desk, with a laptop in the background and a black notebook in the foreground

Revise Toward Praise, Not Away From Criticism

Revising toward praise gives a writer a direction to go, something to build to instead of something to run from.

Jun 14, 2021

Don’t Write Alone | Notes From Class

Cover Photo: A group of kids and teenagers staring entranced at a glowing orb

The Mothers and Their Daughters; The Leavers and the Stayers

I love to be a leaver. To be the one that steps out into the unknown, even as I am terrified.

May 05, 2021

Columns | Scaring Children

Cover Photo: An illustration from the Goosebumps book series featuring a sign that says "WELCOME TO HORRORLAND," held up by a horned monster

We Are All Still Children

A lot of my fears have been made real by the last year. And somehow, some way, I have returned to an insatiable appetite for things that scare me.

Feb 10, 2021

Columns | Scaring Children

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