Episode Notes

About the author: Sofia Samatar is the author of the novels A Stranger in Olondria and The Winged Histories, the short story collection, Tender, and Monster Portraits, a collaboration with her brother, the artist Del Samatar. Her work has won several awards, including the World Fantasy Award. She teaches African literature, Arabic literature, and speculative fiction at James Madison University.

About the reader: Derek Johnson is a Queer, multi-ethnic POC and member of the African diaspora. Writer, comic book artist, cartoonist, documentary filmmaker and co-host of several past and current podcasts: The Authority Smashing! Hour, TASH: Radical Report, Critical Mass, and Where’s My Jetpack?! He identifies as a libertarian socialist and anarcho-syndicalist and does labor organizing through the IWW. He has been an advocate for children with mental illness, a civil liberties/human rights and homeless rights activist, and has volunteered at his local community radio station. He is a Philosophical Taoist and Spinoza-leaning non-theist/ agnostic/ freethinker under the Unitarian Universalist umbrella currently working on a series of speculative/ science fiction novels and graphic novels centering on Sci-fi, suspense, horror, weird fiction, noir, and fantasy, genre styles and Afrofuturism, Steampunk, anarchistic, humanistic, and Taoist themes.

About the host: Margaret Killjoy is a transfeminine author and editor currently based in the Appalachian mountains. Her most recent book is an anarchist demon hunters novella called The Barrow Will Send What it May, published by Tor.com. She spends her time crafting and complaining about authoritarian power structures and she blogs at birdsbeforethestorm.net.