Jules Machias

Jules Machias writes and illustrates fiction for middle-grade readers, often centering disability, anxiety, friendship, and gender expression. Fight + Flight, published by Quill Tree Books in 2022, alternates between Avery Hart and Sarah Bell. Avery is adjusting to hypermobile Ehlers-Danlos syndrome and fears losing the activities she loves, while Sarah experiences panic attacks and channels emotion into art. A frightening school safety drill brings the girls together, and their friendship changes how each understands vulnerability and strength. Machias has described the novel as informed by personal experience with both hEDS and generalized anxiety disorder. Their earlier novel Both Can Be True follows two young people working together to save a dog and received recognition from the American Library Association’s Rainbow Book List. Outside fiction, Machias has worked in editing and proofreading through Red Pen Refinery. Fight + Flight uses two distinct voices to give chronic pain and fear equal narrative weight without making either character only a diagnosis.