*Tonight at 6:30pm, live podcast for “African Women and Girl Storytellers in the Digital Age.”
*This weekend at Harlem’s Apollo Theatre, Blitz the Ambassador, Nneka, Freshlyground, The Soil and Lokua Kanza will be performing at Africa Now! I will be there at Saturday’s concert.
* Kickstarter campaign for animated series, Spider Stories, pilot. Here is the synopsis:
Spider Stories follows the tale of Princess Zahara who is thrown into hiding after the royal family is overthrown by a corrupt neighboring kingdom. While traveling with a misfit caravan of merchants she meets a wandering drummer griot who introduces her to the spirit world. Armed with a mystical staff, the fearless princess embarks on quest to reconnect with the spirits, reunite her homeland, and reclaim the throne.
*Balogun Ojetade and Milton Davis recently released the collection, Steamfunk!, on Kindle.
*On Friday and Saturday, the “Peoples Science @Speculative Visions of Race, Technology, Science & Survival” conference will take place at the UC Berkeley Center for Race and Gender. Dorothy Roberts will be the keynote speaker and will discuss her book, Fatal Invention: How Science, Politics, and Big Business Re-create Race in the Twenty-first Century. For more info.
Keep on the lookout for this upcoming anthology, Long Hidden: Speculative Fiction From the Margins of History from Daniel Jose Older and Rose Fox. This the the synopsis:
Most written chronicles of history, and most speculative stories, put rulers, conquerors, and invaders front and center. People with less power, money, or status—enslaved people, indigenous people, people of color, queer people, laborers, women, people with disabilities, the very young and very old, and religious minorities, among others—are relegated to the margins. Today, mainstream history continues to perpetuate one-sided versions of the past while mistelling or erasing the stories of the rest of the world.
There is a long and honorable legacy of literary resistance to erasure. This anthology partakes of that legacy. It will feature stories from the margins of speculative history, each taking place between 1400 and the early 1900s and putting a speculative twist—an element of science fiction, fantasy, horror, or the unclassifiably strange—on real past events.
They have reached their goal, but if you still want to help so they can accomplish more, here is the kickstarter page.
Sherese Francis: Futuristically Ancient 