We are a Plural collective of four adults, two teenagers, and at least one child, all sharing a 28-year-old Autistic, chronically ill body. Currently, we live in southern Indiana, within 10 miles of Louisville, Kentucky. We were born in the greater DC area and raised in the suburbs of San Diego. After high school, we went to UC Berkeley for one year; for medical reasons, we had to withdraw and return home. There, we started gender-affirming hormone therapy and changed our legal name.
We lived in the vicinity of Olympia, Washington from September 2019 to February 2024. While there, we recognized our dissociation and differentiated from each other, each taking a name of our own and changing our legal name for the second time, this time to reflect something approximating the totality of who we are. During this time, we also began to write creative nonfiction and poetry, and shifted our educational path toward creative writing.
Rose Iris Theodosia Elysium (ey/em, they/them) is an extroverted, idealistic, curious poet who also dabbles in prose and hybrid forms. Ey has been writing since elementary school, often gravitating to memoir and autobiography. Ey openly embraces a number of identities, including Jewish, genderqueer, disabled, Mad, and fat. Several of us split to protect em over the years; as such, we tend to give eir opinions more weight, and we all respond to eir name. Ey is restless and adventurous; when ey isn’t writing or volunteering with the Crisis Text Line, you might find em rockhounding on a nature walk, enjoying a scenic drive, or bringing our cat Angelica on a road trip. When not traveling, ey enjoys listening to Broadway cast recordings and music by P!nk, watching sitcoms and any shows featuring Natasha Lyonne with our mom, pulling tarot spreads, and interpreting birth charts for each member of our collective.
Zephyr Orion Narcissus Elysium (he/him) is a quiet, introverted trans man who is still finding his voice. He usually writes research-backed prose, as his background is in science writing. His interests include astronomy, environmental science, genealogy, gene-environment interactions, and medical science. Though he is still not a prolific writer, he was the first to split from Rose and thus holds a substantial portion of our childhood memories. He shares these with the rest of us, especially Rose, to provide insight as they craft pieces on our earlier years. When not writing or assisting one of his headmates’ creative process, he genuinely enjoys cleaning and cooking, as well as researching family history, planning bucket-list road trips, and playing Minecraft.
Apollo Icarus Dionysus Elysium (xe/xem, they/them) is an agender nonfiction writer with a journalistic style. Xyr background is mostly in personal essays and narratives, largely published on Medium and focused on disability, college life, and being transgender. Xe has proven xemself capable of running the collective with Rose only minimally present, as xe earned an associate degree in American Sign Language while doing so between 2017 and 2019, but xe prefers to mostly exist in the background, providing guidance on daily activities. Xe holds a majority of our memories from October 2016 to September 2019 and often assists in writing any pieces which address or focus on those years. As xe was integral to getting our chronic illnesses properly diagnosed, we also rely on them to provide any important context when writing anything related to our medical journey. When not writing, helping xyr headmates write, or relaxing in the inner-world, xe enjoys listening to podcasts and various Broadway cast recordings, watching documentaries and Michael Schur sitcoms, driving, doing jigsaw puzzles, and playing games on our phone.
Pearl Iris Persephone Elysium (ey/em, they/them) is our collective’s most recent split, an assertive genderpunk poet who rarely adheres to standard poetic conventions. Much of eir work is best read aloud. For several years, ey has focused on writing (and helping Rose write) about a toxic relationship with a fellow writer who initially pushed us to explore creative writing more seriously. Ey tends toward realism, sometimes veering into pessimism, a perspective which both annoys and protects the more optimistic Rose. The epitome of chaotic good, eir moral compass often conflicts with societal norms. When not writing, either alone or with Rose, ey enjoys road trips, spontaneous neighborhood or backyard explorations, foraging for medicinal and edible plants, thrifting, listening to P!nk, making playlists, and watching darker TV shows like Scandal and Russian Doll.
Pandora Iris Nemesis Elysium (she/her, they/them) is a 17-year-old nonbinary lesbian who, unlike most of the collective, primarily writes fiction. Her earliest forays into writing came at age ten in Warriors roleplay forums, before graduating to fanfiction jointly written with friends, ultimately followed by her own fanfiction stories. With help from Rose and Artemis, she participated in National Novel Writing Month for several years while we were in middle and high school. She played water polo in high school; she and Rose were both voracious readers until a sports-related concussion in 2013 affected their visual processing. Though her particular style of writing doesn’t often fit the collective’s needs, she excels at writing scenes involving dialogue and other elements common in fiction, which has proven useful in the prose side of our hybrid memoir work. When not writing, she loves baking, playing Stardew Valley, tending to her plants, knitting, melting down wax to pour new candles, and helping Zephyr around the house.
Artemis Iris Mnemosyne Elysium (she/her, they/them) is an outdoorsy, untamed 13-year-old tomboy. Though not especially inclined to directly write, she contributes in prose when the subject matter interests her, often when focused on old-growth ecosystems, unkempt or overgrown landscapes, abandoned and/or haunted places, cemeteries, mushrooms, and anything else related to death. She is particularly close to a trove of key childhood memories, so even when she doesn’t directly write, she remains a key part of our creative process. When not writing, she enjoys catching and releasing insects, hunting for and identifying mushrooms, watching Wednesday, tending to her worm bin, and helping Zephyr with more unpleasant housework.
Virginia Kathleen Elysium (she/her) is a relatively anxious 9-year-old with little concept of gender. As the oldest of our Littles, she makes sure the younger ones feel safe if asked to participate in our creative process. Like Artemis, she’s unlikely to write directly, but her proximity to our youngest headmates and many of our childhood memories leads us to frequently ask for her help, even if just to ask a question or two, when writing about our childhood. When not writing, she spends most of her time in the headspace, sometimes emerging to watch Steven Universe with Mom.
Rose& Iris Orion Theodosia Elysium 