Eleanna Castroianni
Storyteller of folk hauntings and the baroque melancholy of the future
I tell stories from the margins of history—a dark and mystical Greece marked by troubling politics and violence—and the far—or not so far—futures of capitalism and the Anthropocene.
The first stories I ever heard were the ones my grandmother told me from her childhood in Nazi-occupied Greece. You will find her voice in my own words: the collective, intergenerational trauma of war, oppression, and exile is always there, prominent or masked; so is the pagan darkness of Greek folk traditions and the cruel fragility of childhood.
The grandchild of refugees and immigrants from Anatolia, I migrated myself to study geography: a discipline born in the marrow of colonialism. Geography made me notice how growing up next to ancient ruins is learning how to live with ghosts—and how to, perhaps, make your peace with them. Place is central in the stories I tell and so are the non-human others with whom we have co-evolved since our beginning and with whom we must learn to co-exist anew.
My words take the form of fiction, poetry, and sometimes essays. I am also a trained oral storyteller, a dedicated diarist, a self-taught musician, and a very private artist.
“[Castroianni builds] strange, dreamy, cynical worlds where good people suffer; and then, with an unerring instinct, they place their finger on the hope in those worlds. It’s a way of writing that I find particularly valuable in this political climate” – Jenny Hamilton at Reading the End
new fiction
This Wooden Heart, PodCastle
A family with a secret that becomes a heavy burden during WWII and the occupation of Greece by Axis forces.
The Lark Ascending, Clarkesworld
A robotic domestic helper is the only one who remembers Papa. The only one to quietly watch Papa’s daughter grasping at the shadows that erased memories leave behind.
sELECT wRITING
An Incomplete Account of the Case of the Bird-Talker of Yaros, Fireside, Locus Recommended List 2021
The Athuran Interpreter’s Flight, Strange Horizons, Locus Recommended List 2019
Our Heartstrings Howl the Moon, Strange Horizons
“An outstanding piece of historical fiction threaded through with fairytale and subtle magic.”– Maria Haskins
Foldable Daughters, Fantasy Magazine (poem)
Staying with the End of the World: SF Futures of Hope during Ecological Devastation, Clarkesworld (essay)
If you like stories from past or future margins of history my short fiction and poetry is available to read for free.
In my blog I write about the creative process in a changing world.
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I am always open to collaborations. If you want to chat about our common interests, don’t hesitate. Reach out.
Eleanna Castroianni 