The Monthly Aqueduct
In this month's newsletter, we tell you about two important symposia whose impact will be shaping the genre for months to come: Ferguson is the Future and Creating Futures Rooted in Wonder. We also present our new title in the Conversation Pieces series, have a look at the Philip K. Dick Award storybundle, and more. Enjoy!
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Ferguson is the Future
 On September 14, Princeton University hosted "Ferguson Is the Future", a symposium that was, in Rasheedah Phillips's words, "a future-perfect gathering of activists, artists, academics, filmmakers, musicians, writers and cultural producers exploring the intersections between social justice and speculative fiction, activism and afrofuturism." Authors attending included Nisi Shawl, Nalo Hopkinson, and Tananarive Due, among others, both established and emergent.
We encourage you to read Rasheedah Phillips's piece on this ground-breaking event, as well as Andrea Hairston's notes on the Aqueduct blog and Sofia Samatar on her website: "Every laugh, every hug, every conversation, every argument, every image, every sound represents a document in a shared lifestream—a stream of black life that persists. For yes, genocide can fail."
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New Conversation Piece:
A Field Guide to the Spirits, by Jean LeBlanc
 We're happy to announce that our latest Conversation Piece just came back from the printer. In Jean LeBlanc's A Field Guide to the Spirits, poetry becomes a means of time travel in which voices from the past offer insights, reveal secrets, transform our concept of now. These poems explore the interwoven pathways of ghost, memory, imagination, and desire. The spirits visited range from Caroline Herschel and Mary Shelley to Zane Grey and Dashiell Hammet, William Blake to Anne Hutchinson, John Keats to Isaac Newton’s niece.
The book will soon be available on our website and elsewhere. |
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Philip K. Dick Award Storybundle
 Lisa Mason, one of this year's judges for the Philip K. Dick Award, has curated an e-book bundle of novels that have won the award in the past. One of Gwyneth Jones's wonderful novels, Life, is among these. This bundle will be available for a limited time (from September 23 through October 15), and for as cheap a starting price as $5. For more details on titles and bundle options, visit our blog. |
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Creating Futures Rooted in Wonder
 Between September 16 and 19, the University of Hawai'i hosted "Creating Futures Rooted in Wonder," a symposium that gathered scholars, filmmakers, creative writers, activists, and more to explore the value of bridging Indigenous, Science Fiction, and Fairy Tale Studies, and the question "How does wonder help us imagine and create more just and sustainable futures?" The symposium included workshops, media showcases, roundtable discussions and performances.
Nisi Shawl, who participated and read from her work, will be writing an essay titled "Across the Lies of Space and Time", on both this and the "Ferguson is the Future" symposium, which will be featured in The WisCon Chronicles, vol. 10.
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Back, Belly, and Side Reading
On September 9, Celeste Rita Baker read excerpts from her new book and answered the audience's questions at the George Bruce Library in Harlem, New York. Her fabulous storytelling was hosted by Cecelia Davidson as part of her "Short Plays to Nourish the Mind and Soul" dramatic reading series and supported by a creative team including Mary Hodges, LeVera Sutton, and Bryan Joseph Henao.
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2015 Strange Horizons
Fund Drive
It's time for Strange Horizons' annual fundraiser, which this year is aiming to collect $18,000, all devoted to running the magazine throughout the coming year. Every donation makes you eligible for a number of attractive prizes, including Rose Lemberg's poetry collection Marginalia to Stone Bird, forthcoming from Aqueduct in January 2016.
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