marlee jane ward

Books


The Forgetting Navigations
Forthcoming from Interstellar Flight Press in May, 2026.
"Few writers can face brutality without flinching, and fewer can tell it well. Marlee Jane Ward is that rare author who can show you the worst that humanity can do, and at the same time, give you something beautiful. This book is a tapestry of blood, grief, and unbreakable love." -Meg Elison, author of The Book of the Unnamed Midwife.
"Harrowing. Thrilling. Beautifully life-affirming. The Forgetting Navigations is all of these things and more. Marlee Jane Ward uses the grammar of space opera to tell an unforgettable story of what it takes to survive in a harsh universe as a woman." Charlie Jane Anders, author of Lessons in Magic and Disaster


Welcome to Orphancorp
Winner of the Viva La Novella Prize & the Victorian Premiers Literary Award for YA. Nominated for The NSW Premiers Award, an Aurealis Award & the Norma K Hemming Award.
"Welcome to Orphancorp is harrowing, scarily real, and ultimately super moving." Charlie Jane Anders (i09)

Psynode
Nominated for Best YA Novel in the Aurealis Awards.
"Even as she tells the story of a world driven wild with capitalism, she points towards the possibility of more. Psynode is confronting and raw. Ward is a phenomenal new voice in Australian YA with a powerful imagination and an enviable talent." Books And Publishing

Prisoncorp
‍Nominated for Best Science Fiction Novella in the Aurealis Awards'
"It's full of brilliantly compact, atmospheric world-building, with gritty characters you care about." Sydney Morning Herald

Short Fiction


Building
Interzone Digital, 2023

Acacia Crescent
Patreon, 2022

The Husband in your Head
Curious Fictions, 2020

Rats
Kindred: 12 Queer #LoveOzYA Stories, 2019
Nominated for The Norma K Hemming Award and Best YA Short Story in the Aurealis Awards

Starving To Death In Brunswick West
Slink Chunk Press, August 2017

The Great House Thrippet, Season 246, Episode 12
Aurealis Magazine, Issue 102, July 2017

The Rainmaker Goddess, Hallowed Shaz
Feminartsy, April, 2017
Nominated for Best Fantasy Short Story in the Aurealis Awards

Atavistacular
Andromeda Spaceways Magazine, Issue 64, September 2016

The Beasts and the Birthday
Aurealis Magazine, Issue 9, 2016

Fert
‍In Your Face, Fablecroft Publishing, June 2016

Phasing In, Phasing Out
‍The Sockdolager, Issue 5, Spring 2016

The Structure
‍Slink Chunk Press, March 2016
2nd place in the 2014 Katharine Susannah Prichard Short Fiction Award

Reconstituted
Apex Magazine, December 2015
Winner of Apex Magazine's Flash Fiction Competition

Clara's
Hear Me Roar, Ticonderoga Press, 2015

Who's A Good Boy?
‍Vice Terraform, October 2015

Apocalypse Babe
Mad Scientist Journal, Autumn 2015

The Walking Thing
Interfictions 2015

Non Fiction

To Start Again or Try
‍Kill Your Darlings, October 2024

Big Dad Energy
Kill Your Darlings, September 2020

Money for Something (written as Mia Walsch)
2020

What I'm Reading
Meanjin, 2019

Invisible Until
Overland, September 2018

Out of Here
Scum Mag, January 2018