About

My name is Jesse Annette (they/she). I’m a writer and visual artist, long-time theater artist, and long-time reader of fanfiction and fantasy, as well as a newer Dungeons & Dragons player. Forging Ash of the Beloved grew out of building the character of Austra for my current campaign. What began as a brief backstory evolved into something more sustained: a meditation on power, inheritance, love, and the difficult work of choosing who we become.

As a lesbian, I’ve wished that there were more fantasy stories that center lesbian love, not as subtext or tragedy, but as something lived, chosen, and allowed to be complex. This trilogy is shaped by that desire: to tell a story where Saphic love exists at the center of political conflict, rebellion, and responsibility, and where intimacy does not erase consequence or soften the cost of choice.

This trilogy is interested in the devastation of the roles we are born into, whether imposed by family, nation, faith, duty, or all of the above, and the choices we make in response. It is shaped by questions of loyalty and betrayal, rebellion and responsibility, and queer love of all forms that are forged under impossible pressure. I am drawn to stories where survival does not equal healing, and where peace must be built deliberately from what remains.

Book One (Air and Ash and All We Lost) expands Austra’s history before the events of the campaign. Book Two (Queerly Beloved) is grounded in the events of the ongoing campaign itself, adapted into a narrative form. Book Three (The Peace We Dare to Forge) will complete Austra’s story beyond the table, carrying her arc forward after the campaign concludes.

This site serves as the canonical home for the series. Book One is complete and is being released episodically, with new sections posted weekly. The story is also mirrored on other platforms for readers who prefer different spaces to read and engage, but the text remains the same.

I write slowly and intentionally, with an emphasis on character, consequence, and emotional continuity. Thank you for reading and for choosing to spend time in this world.

Influences

This series is shaped by my love of character-driven, high-stakes stories about power and identity, including:

Children of Blood and Bone by Tomi Adeyemi
Ember in the Ashes by Sabaa Tahir
Throne of Glass by Sarah J. Maas
Divergent by Veronica Roth
The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins

While writing Air and Ash and All We Lost, I returned often to music that held space for longing, intimacy, emotional clarity, and Sapphic perspectives, including:

Everything girl in red and Chappell Roan
In My Bones by 76th Street
Cheap Queen by King Princess
Midnights and Folklore by Taylor Swift
- Most specifically, Maroon and Bigger Than the Whole Sky

AI Usage notes

Portions of this work were developed in collaboration with ChatGPT as a creative tool. I used AI to explore language, refine thematic structure, and test variations of titles and framing through an iterative editorial process. All final narrative decisions, thematic direction, and creative intent are my own; AI served as a sounding board and drafting aid, not a substitute for authorship.

The images currently displayed on this site were initially drafted using AI image generation through ChatGPT and then edited by me for style, composition, and detail. Once Book One is fully posted, I plan to focus on creating my own original digital artwork for the series, using these early images as reference rather than as final representations.