Home Page: Francis Van Ganson is a bookseller, organ donor, and fiction writer. Their writing explores violence in movies, sex on tv, and what grief, trauma and mental illness do to narrative.
Home Page Image ID: film photo of a bright blue garbage can on the side of the street in the evening, pink flowers in the foreground
About: Francis Van Ganson manages a little used bookstore in Chicago. They attended the 2023 Clarion writersβ workshop and have a creative writing and literature degree from Beloit College.
Francis writes about the messy, sexy, and depressing realities of trans life in the midwest, using speculative elements to tell true stories. In their work, they prioritize unreliable narrators, unlikable characters, and radioactive interpersonal conflict.
Francis wants their writing to be fun, like slap shots or a slip n slide. They write for their community of control freaks, losers, AND people with overdue parking tickets. They drive a 2010 Honda civic. beep beep.
Image ID 1: Francis (blonde, dressed gay) standing by a lake and surrounded by greenery during golden hour.
Image ID 2: Flower arrangement sitting in the cupholder of a Honda Civic.
Image ID 3: Screenshot of a text message reading itβs going to be the slowest of goings but I see it so clearly.
Image ID 4: Dumpster in the foreground, large white flowers covering a fence in the middle ground, mossy concrete building in the background.
Recent Work:
Iso E Super - FORTHCOMING 2026
Fusion Fragment - short story
Tags: hot robot girls, sea foam, skin scents, sunlight on hardwood, DΓ©but by Melanie Laurent, my years-long blood feud with the movie Ex Machina, cocaine sideboob or whatever it was Harry Styles said
SHERLOCK HOLMES AND HARRY HOUDINI MAKE OUT IN WISCONSIN WEEKS BEFORE DISASTER
CRAFT Literary - short story
Tags: handcuffs, bad taxidermy, con-men, melodrama, sherlock holmes kinning, being an unreliable narrator of your own life, smashing your heart into a million bajillion pieces, fun facts about glaciers
Monster of the Week as Realism
Strange Horizons - craft essay
Summary: "Iβm not truly arguing that Monster of the Week shows are more realistic than realism, only that their expansiveness is what allows them to get so close, sometimes closer than straight realism seems to, to an accurate reproduction of daily life. And yet, thatβs exactly what Iβm arguing."
She's so Lucky, She's a Star
ergot. press - short story
Tags: one deeply busted monster ex-girlfriend, hot girl problems, pop villains, rabies symptoms, daddy issues if it meant that your dad has issues, some of the most homophobic dyke drama put to paper, NOT what happened to Fifth Harmony
Same Shitty Life, New Positive Attitude
Zine of the Month - emoji poetry
Tags: rabbit emoji, grave emoji, cloud emoji, mirror emoji, fountain emoji, moon emoji
Juno to Juno Communication
Triangle House Review - essay
Tags: i_love_my_cat.exe
Image ID: Large, old microwave sitting on top of two garbage cans. Cardboard sign on it that reads βstill workingβ
BACK CATALOG
As Above, So Below - F(r)iction Magazine
The Ratcatcher - Cotton Xenomorph
What I know is in the Ocean - Foglifter Journal
Description of a Burning House - Midwestern Gothic
Hypothetical Explanations for the Lost City of Atlantis - LOCUS V
Me Starry Night and the Security Guard & Modern Retelling of the Myth of Persephone - Funny Looking Dog Quarterly
Lake Michigan at Night - Hooligan Magazine
Mother Daughter Eclipse Simulation - LOCUS II
A Curative Spell & Hours Ago in a Forest Like This One - Spilled Milk Magazine