Tananarive Due's new novel, 'The Reformatory,' is the latest in a career of Black horror fiction. It began with an upbringing steeped in civil-rights activism.
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In honor of Black Speculative Fiction Month, eight SFF authors share stories that honor forebearers and memories of the past, fight the legacies that underpin the brutalities of the present, and demand a future that’s freer than today.
The stories publish on Tor.com all throughout the morning of October 19. They are collected here.
“A boy followed me home today. Crawled on his hands and knees. He was bloody and torn by the time I got the key in the lock. Poor thing.”
She says all this in one breath as I drop one cube of sugar in her tea. My hands are shaking by the time I pour my own cup.
“Come on, I’ll show you the way.” A tall, unassuming man with a gray beard and a kind smile sits behind a gnarled
tardigrade desk that looks like a massive cutting from, as he calls it,
The World Tree. In front of him is a television camera and a crew of hurried people wearing headphones and dressed in black. Behind him, crowding the frame of the camera, are bookcases. One of those books is about to fly into his hand, and the man, Zig Zag Claybourne, is about to take us on a journey to a place he knows well.