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Whenever we envision a world without war, without prisons, without capitalism, we are producing speculative fiction. Organizers and activists envision, and try to create, such worlds all the time. Walidah Imarisha and adrienne maree brown have brought twenty of them together in the first anthology of short stories to explore the connections between radical speculative fiction and movements for social change. The visionary tales of Octavia’s Brood span genres—sci-fi, fantasy, horror, magical realism—but all are united by an attempt to inject a healthy dose of imagination and innovation into our political practice and to try on new ways of understanding ourselves, the world around us, an...
"There was a time I believed prisons existed to rehabilitate people, to make our communities safer. . . . When I saw for the first time (but not the last) a mother sobbing and clutching her son when visiting hours were up, only to be physically pried off and escorted out by guards, I knew nothing about that made me safer. This is the heart of this country's prison system. And the prison system has become the heart of America."—Walidah Imarisha, from the introduction. This is no romanticized tale of crime and punishment. The three lives in this creative nonfiction account are united by the presence of actual harm—sometimes horrific violence. Walidah Imarisha, a sexual assault survivor, br...
Half experimental catalogue and half living curriculum, Mirror/Echo/Tilt is one part of a four-year pedagogical project created by artists Melanie Crean, Shaun Leonardo, and Sable Elyse Smith. The publication documents the artists' examination of the language and gestures used to describe experiences of arrest and incarceration and looks to counter culturally embedded conceptions of criminality.
Cultural Writing. Subtitled "Conversations in a Time of Terror," this anthology "is a collection of writings that gives voice to the diverse perspectives that the American people did not have an opportunity to hear despite three days of commercial-free, 24 hour-a-day news coverage on all major networks [following September 11th.]" Includes articles, artwork, poetry, e-mails, interviews, and personal essays in relation and reaction to September 11th and the ensuing social, emotional, and political aftermath. Contributors include Danny Hoch, Angela Davis, Rep. Barbara Lee, The Coup, Elsa Mora, Deepak Chopra, Eduardo Galeano, Norman Solomon, Aaron Mcgruder, David Katz, Barbara Kingsolver, and many more.
"Big ideas that just might save the world"--The Guardian The founder of the international Transition Towns movement asks why true creative, positive thinking is in decline, asserts that it's more important now than ever, and suggests ways our communities can revive and reclaim it. In these times of deep division and deeper despair, if there is a consensus about anything in the world, it is that the future is going to be awful. There is an epidemic of loneliness, an epidemic of anxiety, a mental health crisis of vast proportions, especially among young people. There's a rise in extremist movements and governments. Catastrophic climate change. Biodiversity loss. Food insecurity. The fracturing...
Sisters of the Revolution gathers a highly curated selection of feminist speculative fiction (science fiction, fantasy, horror, and more) chosen by one of the most respected editorial teams in speculative literature today, the award-winning Ann and Jeff VanderMeer. Including stories from the 1970s to the present day, the collection seeks to expand the conversation about feminism while engaging the reader in a wealth of imaginative ideas. From the literary heft of Angela Carter to the searing power of Octavia Butler, Sisters of the Revolution gathers daring examples of speculative fiction’s engagement with feminism. Dark, satirical stories such as Eileen Gunn’s “Stable Strategies for Mi...
Full of heart and humour, Molly Flatt's The Charmed Life of Alex Moore is one woman's adventure – with a most unexpected twist How would you feel if everything in your life suddenly started to go . . . right? Six months ago, Alex Moore was stuck in a dead-end job, failing to unleash one grand plan after another. Then, seemingly overnight, she launched her dream start-up and became one of London's fastest rising tech stars. At thirty, her life has just begun. But Alex’s transformation isn’t easy for those around her. Her friends are struggling to accept her sudden success, her parents are worried that she’s running on empty and her fiancé is getting cold feet. Then weird things start to happen. Muggings, stalkers and even a claim that she murdered a stranger. But when Alex visits the Orkney Islands to recharge, weird turns into WTF. Because there she discovers the world’s oldest secret – and it’s a secret that Alex’s stratospheric rise has royally messed up. 'I was hooked after the first paragraph' Minnie Driver 'A fabulous tale for the fabulist in all of us. Black Mirror for Generation Me' Philip Jones, Editor of The Bookseller
Essays and reports examining the reality of police violence against Black and brown communities in America. What is the reality of policing in the United States? Do the police keep anyone safe and secure other than the very wealthy? How do recent police killings of young Black people in the United States fit into the historical and global context of anti-blackness? This collection of reports and essays (the first collaboration between Truthout and Haymarket Books) explores police violence against Black, brown, indigenous, and other marginalized communities, miscarriages of justice, and failures of token accountability and reform measures. It also makes a compelling and provocative argument a...
A 2018 Bram Stoker Award Finalist Thought-provoking, powerful, and revealing, this anthology is composed of 28 dark stories and 14 poems written by African-American women writers. The tales of what scares, threatens, and shocks them will enlighten and entertain readers. The works delve into demons and shape-shifters from "How to Speak to the Bogeyman" and "Tree of the Forest Seven Bells Turns the World Round Midnight" to far future offerings such as "The Malady of Need". These pieces cover vampires, ghosts, and mermaids, as well as the unexpected price paid by women struggling for freedom and validation in the past. Contributors include: Tiffany Austin, Tracey Baptiste, Regina N. Bradley, Pa...
Providing a comprehensive overview of American thought in the period following World War II, after which the US became a global military and economic leader, this book explores the origins of American utopianism and provides a trenchant critique from the point of view of those left out of the hegemonic ideal. Centring the voices of those oppressed by or omitted from the consumerist American Dream, this book celebrates alternative ways of thinking about how to create a better world through daily practices of generosity, justice, and care. The chapters collected here emphasize utopianism as a practice of social transformation, not as a literary genre depicting a putatively perfect society, and urgently make the case for why we need utopian thought today. With chapters on climate change, economic justice, technology, and more, alongside chapters exploring utopian traditions outside Western frameworks, this book opens a new discussion in utopian thought and theory.