scholar / writer

ava guihama olson is a non-Indigenous, settler writer and scholar from los angeles (Achooykomenga in Tovaangar), currently based in the pacific northwest (Kalapuya ilihi). they graduated with honors from uc berkeley’s american studies program, where their academic work concerned itself with sex, historiography, and the image of the asian woman in american culture. they are now a phd student in the university of oregon’s environmental science, studies, & policy program and the english department. their current research interests involve rhetorical, ecological, & eschatological modes of extinction, carnivore policy, euro-american settler colonialism, and novel ecosystems. 

beyond academia, their writing explores suburbia, place, and all things hereditary, while negotiating the boundary between the erotic and the horrifying. ava is an alum of the tin house summer workshop, and their work has been published in The Offing, Wilde Magazine, Vision and Voice, The Secret History of America, and, in a past life, on archive of our own. to reach ava, email them at avaguihama [at] gmail [dot] com.

recent! recent! recent!

my latest publication, “We Love Because HE Loved Us First,” was nominated for a 2025 Best of the Net award. you can read the piece here.