About Aurelia Tessar
Curious about almost everything.
Aurelia Tessar writes speculative fiction shaped by a lifelong fascination with how things work: places, systems, materials, people, and the ideas we inherit without thinking to question them.
ex-architect, perpetual creative
Trained as an architect, she spent the next two decades building things in one form or another—from buildings and businesses to digital products, creative projects, and the systems that make them work.
That background still influences the way she approaches fiction: worlds have structure, materials have consequences, and changing one part of a system tends to affect everything around it.
We are shaped by our reality as much as we attempt to shape it.
Worlds Built from Rabbit Holes
Research is one of Aurelia's favorite parts of writing.
A question might begin with acoustics, architecture, movement, history, perception, craftsmanship, or some obscure scientific phenomenon and end several dozen research tabs later as the foundation of an entirely different world.
She is particularly interested in capable adults whose lives are already underway; women who don't age out of adventure; intimacy between complicated people; unusual systems of magic; and stories in which complexity doesn't require cynicism.
Her debut novel, What Harmony Forgot, is the first book in The First Voices, a five-book speculative fantasy series built around resonance, perception, and the possibility that an accepted system of knowledge may not be as complete as everyone believes.
Elsewhere, Usually
Aurelia spends much of her time traveling or living internationally, collecting observations, photographs, books, handmade objects, and entirely too many new questions along the way.
She has a particular affection for old buildings, beautiful materials, things made by hand, objects with visible histories, long epic fantasies, and places that reward looking twice.
She shares her home with her partner, family, and Oberon, a Maine Coon whose role in the creative process primarily involves occupying whichever surface is currently required.
And yes, he will eventually feature in a book!
Media & Conversations
Aurelia is available for select interviews, podcasts, panels, guest essays, and conversations around:
A Note About the Name
Aurelia Tessar is a pen name.
After years spent building a public professional life, she chose to keep this creative one a little quieter. She prefers to remain behind the worlds rather than in front of the camera.
You’ll find her instead in the things she notices, the questions she follows, and the stories that emerge from them.