New in 2022 – Winter Events
Full disclosure: I’m much better about doing things than talking about them. This year I’ll try to improve. In that vein, some new blood:
Just a few weeks ago on January 27th, I shared a new speculative story, “The Exhibit” inspired by the work of Emma Amos and the unfortunate current state of American affairs as part of the Museum of Fine Art St. Petersburg celebration of the Spiral Collective, a short lived but impactful group of Black visual artists in the Civil Rights era. I had the good fortune to appear alongside the talented, Butch Thomas, a saxophonist who performed new work (accompanied by Aron Ferrer and Gumbi Ortiz) and Crantston Cumberbatch who shared a short film he wrote, directed and starred in. Here’s a picture of us looking appropriately capable of entertaining folks.
I had a wonderful time and enjoyed the community engagement. If you’d like to hear a bit of Butch’s work scroll through to the video here.
February also sees a couple of interviews come out. One is out today as part of the Horror Writers Associations Black Heritage in Horror interview series. So apparently I’m heritage. Thanks. I’ll take that.
Later this month, you can check out my contribution to the group interview of short fictioneers in Fantasy Magazine (available online February 22nd) or right now if you have a subscription and/or purchase the e-issue.
And (check me out getting out ahead of an event) on February 19th, I’ll be joining Silk Jazmyne to read and discuss life and work as a POC author at ReadOut’s event, Root to Fruit: Producing Speculative Fiction By and About People of Color @1:50pm EST. For those who enjoy multimedia work, there’ll also be video of a short performance from 2021’s, Frequencies, a Fiction Album playing as part of a few sci fi, fantasy readings from 1:15-1:45. For Root to Fruit I’ll be reading from 2021’s Broken Fevers. It’s all on Zoom so everyone’s invited. Just register on the ReadOut (“Out” as in a festival of lesbian literature page.
New Smoketown Review
Dear Author has just reviewed, Smoketown and here’s a bit of the reviewer had to say:
“The characters each had not exactly a secret, but maybe a small mystery behind them, which are first hinted at and then revealed in each individual’s “song” which is played in the main symphony. I say “song” not because every character in the book was singing, but because at times the writing felt very musical and very passionate to me . . . I truly did feel that the city of Leodaire was a living breathing thing in this book; the city which was still hurting from the traumatic event of its past and which finally started healing at the end of the book. I really loved how the hope and darkness are both present in this story and that hope eventually prevails.”
The full review is available here.
Book Excerpt up at Shewired
Shewired has posted an excerpt of Smoketown on their site. You can check it out here.
Read an Excerpt: Smoketown’s First Chapter
The folks at Blind Eye Books have been kind enough to make Chapter 1 available as a downloadable PDF, just click here for the link: Smoketown Chapter 1
“Deep Night” in Necrologue
Deep Night, a short story, is available as part of the award-winning anthology Necrologue: Diva Book of the Dead and Undead.
