Black and white portrait of a woman with long hair, wearing a leather vest and turtleneck, displaying rings on her fingers and earrings. She is touching her hair and has an expressive look.

Photography by Jeff Hahne

Short Bio
A.L. Sterling (she/her) writes dark tales for bright minds. She is the author of Foresyth Conservatory, a gothic mystery set in a 1910 occult graduate school, releasing October 2025. An award-winning scientist, she holds a Ph.D. in materials science and engineering and writes dark and sparkling takes where intellect meets intuition. Follow her on Instagram @a.l.sterling.

Longer Bio
A.L. Sterling (she/her) writes dark tales for bright minds. She is an award-winning scientist turned self-proclaimed “word witch.” Her work blends gothic atmosphere, speculative mystery, and the aching longing of dark academia. She is the author of Foresyth Conservatory (October 2025), a gothic mystery set in 1910 at an elite occult graduate school, where tradition unravels under the weight of grief, power, and inherited secrets.

Sterling wrote her first novel at thirteen and earned a Ph.D. in materials science and engineering from North Carolina State University. She drafted Foresyth Conservatory between research papers and copious amounts of black coffee. Her fiction interrogates inherited systems of belief, explores feminine power in liminal spaces, and seeks out the haunting in the intellectual sublime.

She writes for readers who crave emotional depth, intellectual danger, and stories that echo long after the final page. You can follow her on Instagram @a.l.sterling.