4:00 pm
Clark Hall Room 206, 11130 Bellflower Road
Michele Tracy Berger is the Eric and Jane Nord Family Professor in the Department of Religious Studies and director of the Baker-Nord Center for the Humanities at Case Western Reserve University. She has a secondary appointment in the Department of English. Her short fiction, poetry and creative nonfiction has appeared in 100 Word Story, Apex Magazine, Glint Literary Journal, The Wild Word, Blood and Bourbon, FIYAH: Magazine of Black Speculative Fiction, Midnight and Indigo, Oracle: Fine Arts Review, Carolina Woman, Ms., and various anthologies.
She is the 2019 winner of the Carl Brandon Kindred Award from the Carl Brandon Society for her story "Doll Seed" published in FIYAH: Magazine of Black Speculative Fiction.
Much of her work explores psychological horror, especially through issues of race and gender.
Doll Seed is her debut collection of speculative stories.
Isis Asare is the CEO/Founder of Sistah Scifi (www.sistahscifi.com). Sistah Scifi is the first Black-owned bookstore focused on science fiction and fantasy in the United States as validated by the American Booksellers Association. Located in cyberspace, Sistah Scifi is a national brand with over 40K points of contact. In February 2023, the first three Sistah Scifi Book Vending Machines were launched in California and Washington.
This event will feature Berger and Asare in conversation about Afrofuturism, Black women writing speculative fiction, themes in Doll Seed including freedom and sacrifice, trust and betrayal, otherness, and intersections of identity. Berger will read from the collection and they will participate in audience Q&A.
A book signing and reception will immediately follow.
About Doll Seed:
The stories span horror, fantasy, science fiction, and magical realism, but are always grounded in very real characters and beautifully rendered, distinctive communities. Often thematically centered on the lives of women and girls, especially women of color and their experiences of vulnerability and outsider status, these stories are often playful and always provocative.
Advance Praise for Doll Seed:
“...Off-key music boxes, a masterclass of atmospheric wonder and dread." Jen Julian, author of Red Rabbit Ghost
"This is Black Mirror with the emphasis on Black." Vincent Tirado, author of We Came to Welcome You: A Novel of Suburban Horror
"Michele Tracy Berger has a voice like no one else." Julia Rios, Hugo Award Winning Editor
Book Launch of Doll Seed: Stories by Michele Tracy Berger in conversation with Isis Asare, founder of Sistah Sci-fi.
Registration is requested. Register HERE.
Click HERE to learn more about Michele Tracy Berger.
Click HERE to learn more about Isis Asare.