An anthology of historical speculative fiction? Telling the stories of children who have been marginalized throughout history? Yup, this is the SFF project you’ve been waiting to back. The Kickstarter in question, is right here.
Harriet Tubman is finally set to grace the front cover of the $20 bill. For many it’s a dream come true, especially since folk been “dreaming of Harriet” for a minute.
Image: from a source I won’t name that seemed to be parodying black history with an allusion to “Harriet Tubman in space.” I am both jacking and subverting that sh*t.
It’s that time of year again, Black History Month. Every February in the United States, the country sets aside 28 (or 29 in a leap year) days to celebrate, discuss and engage Black History. Innocuous enough. And yet Feb. 1st seems to signal the beginning of a 28-day long ritual of whining (how come they get their own month?), misconceptions and endless micro-aggressive racial faux-pas. And this isn’t just from the usual sky boxes of white privilege; there are black people (looking in your general direction Stacey Dash) who wade into…well…the stupid. So here are a few tips to better understand the month, both for those who have to endure the stupid and for those who might be enticed to engage in the stupid.
This is just an updated list from an annual post I’ve done for the last two years. But guess what? It never gets old because the stupid never changes.
In the wake of a controversy over who the culture of an entire continent belongs to within the context of its far-flung descendants (many quite involuntarily flung at that), I revisit a set of blog posts I wrote several years ago regarding speculative fiction, world building, “appropriation” and the Africa of our imaginations. Can one appropriate the self?
This March, African-American indie author Milton Davis released his long-awaited Steamfunk adventure From Here to Timbuktu. Filled with heroes, heroines and (of course) all things steam, the story is set an alternate 19th century world where the United States shares North America with a nation of liberated slaves called Freedonia, Mali is still a powerful kingdom in West Africa and an ambitious Prussian officer has nefarious motives. It’s a fascinating, imaginative bit of world building that should be welcomed by everyone in the genre. Not so however for racist trolls, who live to crush black dreams.
Phenderson Djèlí Clark 