A reading from the growing collective of Black Speculative Literary Artists!

Speculative literary artists create fiction, poetry, nonfiction, graphic novels, comics, VR/AR, and multi-media. Writing genres range from magical, fantastical tales to science fiction to steamfunk to Afrofuturism to Southern gothic horror to more than you’ve imagined.

These featured readers represent membership in organizations such as the Afrosurreal Writers Workshop of Oakland, Voodoonauts, the Association of Black and Brown Writers, and Ancestral Futures Lab. Curated by Audrey T. Williams.

Audrey T. Williams is a content creator and constant champion of speculative literary arts who works to uplift voices of BIPOC writers while she works on honing her craft. She earned her MFA from California College of the Arts and her poetry can be found in Space & Time Magazine, FUNGI, and forthcoming in Conjuring Worlds, an Afrofuturist homeschool textbook for middle grades. She is the Founder of Ancestral Futures Lab and co-facilitates a mentorship for BIPOC speculative writers that matches them with professional authors in their genre of choice. AncestralFutures.org

Desi Lenc’s fiction is steeped in surrealism, while her non-fiction is rooted in the tangible solutions non-profits and sustainable businesses provide. Her blog, Outcast’s Mag, celebrates the unique contributions artists, eco-friendly business owners, and non-profits offer to their communities. She’s currently working on her first novel, which you can find an excerpt of in the upcoming anthology New Transmissions from The Dark Fantastic Continuum.

Trey (also known as Vernon Keeve III) is a Virginia born, queer writer. They currently live and teach in Oakland. They hold a MFA from CCA, and a MA in Teaching Literature from Bard College. Trey's full-length collection of poetry, Southern Migrant Mixtape, was published by Nomadic Press in 2018 and is the recipient of the PEN Oakland Josephine Miles Award.

Yvette Lisa Ndlovu is a Zimbabwean sarungano (storyteller). Her debut short story collection Swimming with Crocodiles (University Press of Kentucky, Spring 2023) won the 2021 UPK New Poetry & Prose Series Prize. She is pursuing her MFA at the University of Massachusetts-Amherst where she teaches in the Writing Program. She has taught at Clarion West Writers Workshop online and earned her BA at Cornell University. Her work has been supported by fellowships from the Tin House Workshop, Bread Loaf Writers Workshop, and the New York State Summer Writers Institute. She received the 2017 Cornell University George Harmon Coxe Award for Poetry selected by Sally Wen Mao and was the 2020 fiction winner of Columbia Journal’s Womxn History Month Special Issue. She is the co-founder of the Voodoonauts Summer Workshop for Black SFF writers. Her work has appeared or is forthcoming in F&SF, Tor.com, Columbia Journal, Fiyah Literary Magazine, Mermaids Monthly, and Kweli Journal. She is currently at work on a novel.

Raised an only child in Florence, New Jersey; B. Sharise Moore’s love of literature was ignited by Roald Dahl’s Charlie and the Chocolate Factory and Judy Blume’s Tales of a Fourth Grade Nothing. After earning a BA in English from Rutgers University, she began performing her poetry on stages throughout the country. Moore’s poems and short stories have appeared in several anthologies and literary magazines such as Chosen Realities: Summer 2020, Issue 1, Fantasy Magazine, These Bewitching Bonds, Mermaid Monthly, and Fiyah Magazine of Black Speculative Fiction. At present, Moore is a Creative Writing teacher, the poetry editor at Fiyah Magazine of Black Speculative Fiction, the host of Moore Books with B. Sharise on YouTube, and a graduate student at McDaniel College where she is pursuing a Master’s of Science degree in Curriculum and Instruction with a concentration in Writing for Children and Young Adults. Her debut YA historical fantasy novel, Dr. Marvellus Djinn’s Odd Scholars is available for purchase wherever books are sold. In her spare time, she enjoys reading to her terrific toddler, “Peanut” and engaging in intellectual spats with her husband J. “Owl” Farand. She lives in Baltimore, MD.