Authors with Aphantasia
Books written by authors who have aphantasia. Sources and info in the pinned comment.
Disclaimer: I have not read all these books
created by tulin
last updated October, 2026
Comments
I have a very low ability to visualize things, and have dabbled in writing for many years, and I got curious about published authors who also have aphantasia. Since I didnât see a list, I decided to make my own!
Big disclaimer, I have only read John Greenâs books and Brave New World, so I cannot vouch for the quality or content of the rest of the books. For authors I did not know, I just picked one of the first books that came up when I put in their names, so if you have a book by one of these authors that you think better represents their writing, please let me know and Iâll switch it out!
Recommendations are welcome! If you have a source to point to where the author mentions they have aphantasia, it would be great if you could include it in your comment. Iâm only looking for fiction books or memoirs for this list right now, unless you have a nonfiction book rec with descriptive imagery or that reads more like a story than recitation of facts.
If youâve never heard of aphantasia, itâs the inability to visualize things with your mind. I highly recommend reading the article by Jae I linked below because itâs a super interesting topic and Jae does a good job of explaining the experience!
Feel free to comment on your own experience with aphantasia even if you donât have a book rec, because I always like hearing from others who canât see anything in their minds!
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Sources:
⢠Most of these authors I pulled straight from the đaphantasia Wikipedia page (John Green, Aldous Huxley, Mark Lawrence, Yoon Ha Lee, Michelle Sagara, Andy Weir). See the Wikipedia page for the citations.
⢠Several are also from đthis article by the sapphic romance writer Jae (Jae, Cheyenne Blue, Amanda Radley, Jacqueline Ramsdan, Jade Winters, Chris Zett)
⢠Dea Poirier
⢠Alexandra Oliva
(PS if any author on this list uses AI to write, please let me know and I will remove them immediately! I ran across one author who used AI to generate images as inspiration so I did not include them đ¤)
OMG TULIN, I absolutely love LOVE this list as I have aphantasia myself. I will have to check out all of this book, it's so exciting. Thank you for this work đ
tulinOP
Yayyy fellow reader with aphantasiađ¤đââď¸ Iâll have to read more of these myself, I wonder if there will be a noticeable difference in writing style or if theyâve managed to âblend inâ so to speak with authors who have no trouble visualizing đ¤
I have only read Project Hail Mary from these and I didn't feel any difference if I'm being honest, I feel like he portrayed everything easily to visualise it, but maybe that's the point that words mean more to them than imagination... but I would like to hear thoughts from someone who has good visualisation in their mind if they can feel any difference!
I have hyperphantasia, so I'm on the other end of the spectrum!
I've read Brave New World and Prince of Thorns. I can't remember Brave New World well enough to comment on it. With Prince of Thorns, I'd never guess that the author has aphantasia! I didn't notice anything different.
Also, your point about that author is so interesting! When I began writing as a hobby, I wasn't putting enough description into my writing. It's the opposite of what people would assume from someone with hyperphantasia, but it seems I was assuming other people would fill in the blanks and visualize as I do (because I readily visualize when things aren't described), so my writing was strangely sparse. Now I wonder how common that is. I'm sure other people with hyperphantasia have overdescribed their visualizations. It could go either way. Ugh, description remains my #1 struggle, because the visualization really doesn't translate into writing ability.
Oh, that is so great to hear some opinion from someone with hyperphantasia! I can't even imagine that! It's so interesting that you are struggling with descriptions, but maybe people with aphantasia are trying to compensate as much as possible and try to put as much description as they can, so it would be easier for people to imagine? Or it just depends on a person! But it's really intruiging. Thank you for sharing đ
Thatâs really cool that you have hyperphantasia, I canât even begin to imagine đ Interesting that you mentioned you struggle writing descriptions because of it! I canât remember who it was, but one of the sapphic romance writers interviewed in Jaeâs article I linked in my pinned comment said people told them they were writing excessive descriptions, trying to compensate for their aphantasia! đ¤Ż
That is so interesting!! It's really the opposite situation đ¤
tulinOP
I was a huge John Green fan as a young teen and I havenât read anything by him recently, but maybe something about his writing resonated with me back then! Iâll have to read some of his newer books to investigate lol. I guess with the way there are sooo many different writing styles out there, there probably isnât a way you could pinpoint exactly when an author has aphantasia vs it just being their writing style haha! I linked an arcticle by the author Jae in my pinned comment and it was really interesting to read about their thought process while writing and the interviews Jae did with a few other authors with aphantasia!
Yeah, you are probably right, but it's really interesting if it's possible to see some little nuances that can point to that! I will definitely check out article you mentioned there, probably tomorrow!
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