Description
Fiction. Poetry. Literary Nonfiction. Drama. African & African American Studies. Afrofuturism. "When you chose to alter the history and ideology that has and continues to oppress you, you choose the path of a creator," writes special issue guest editor Sheree Renée Thomas in her introduction to OBSIDIAN'S SPECULATING FUTURES: BLACK IMAGINATION AND THE ARTS. "Under the powerful lens of Afrofuturism, the impossible is possible. It is creative alchemy. The spirit and rhythm of a culture is preserved and transformed; the past is not only contested but sacred space." Winner of the Council of Editors of Learned Journals (CELJ) 2018 Parnassus Award, which recognizes significant realization of editorial mission, SPECULATING FUTURES includes fiction, poetry, criticism, essays, scripts, visual art & more from African writers & artists around the world, including Sofia Samatar, Tochi Onyebuchi, Alexis Pauline Gumbs, Walidah Imarisha, Nisi Shawl, Isiah Lavender III, Krista Franklin, and Sheree Renée Thomas, among many others.
Author Bio
Duriel E. Harris is a poet, performer, and sound artist. She is author of three print volumes of poetry, including her most recent, NO DICTIONARY OF A LIVING TONGUE (Nightboat, 2017), DRAG (Elixir Press, 2003) and Amnesiac: Poems (2010). Multi-genre works include her one-woman theatrical performance Thingification, as well as Speleology (2011), a video collaboration with artist Scott Rankin. Cofounder of the avant garde poetry/performance trio The Black Took Collective, Harris is an associate professor of English in the graduate creative writing program at Illinois State University and the editor of OBSIDIAN: LITERATURE & ARTS IN THE AFRICAN DIASPORA (Downstate Legacies, 2019).
Sheree Renée Thomas is the author of Sleeping Under the Tree of Life and Shotgun Lullabies: Stories & Poems. She is the editor of the groundbreaking anthologies Dark Matter: A Century of Speculative Fiction from the African Diaspora and Dark Matter: Reading the Bones. Her speculative stories and poems appear in Apex Magazine, Harvard's Transition, Smith's Meridians, NYU's Black Renaissance Noire, Callaloo, ESSENCE, So Long Been Dreaming: Postcolonial Science Fiction & Fantasy, Mythic Delirium, Strange Horizons, Revise the Psalm: Writers Celebrate the Work of Gwendolyn Brooks, The Moment of Change: An Anthology of Feminist Specualtive Poetry, An Alphabet of Embers: An Anthology of Unclassiafiables, Jalada Afrofuture(s), Afrofuturo(s), Stories for Chip: A Tribute to Samuel R. Delaney, Inks Crawl, Memphis Noir, Mojo Rising: Contemporary Writers, and the anthology, Sycorax's Daughters. Based in Memphis, Thomas is Associate Editor of OBSIDIAN: LITERATURE & ARTS IN THE AFRICAN DIASPORA (Downstate Legacies, 2019),
Author City: USA