Nalo Hopkinson is a Jamaican-born Canadian speculative fiction writer and editor. Her novels – Brown Girl in the Ring (1998), Midnight Robber (2000), The Salt Roads (2003), The New Moon's Arms (2007) – and short stories such as those in her collection Skin Folk (2001) often draw on Caribbean history and language, and its traditions of oral and written storytelling.
Francis Hopkinson Smith was an American author, artist and engineer. He built the foundation for the Statue of Liberty, wrote many stories and received awards for his paintings.
"Even the Queen" is a science fiction short story by Connie Willis, exploring the long-term cultural effects of scientific control of menstruation. It was originally published in 1992 in Asimov's Science Fiction, and appears in Willis' short-story collection Impossible Things (1994) and The Best of Connie Willis (2013), as well as in the audio-book Even the Queen and Other Short Stories (1996).
Caribbean folklore includes a mix of traditions, tales, and beliefs of the Caribbean region. Caribbean folklore was shaped by a history filled with violence, colonialism, slavery, and multicultural influences. Specifically, influences from African, Creole, Asian, Indigenous American, European, and Indian cultures converged in the Caribbean to create a blend of lore unique to the region. Caribbean folklore has a variety of different characters that portray different traits. Folklore has evolved by blending folk speech, Creole dialogue, and various other elements that create the literary form of folklore, which portrays the "spirit" and "soul" of the Caribbean. Many themes are covered in Caribbean folklore, including colonial legacies, diversity in cultures, and the search for identity. Writers such as Nalo Hopkinson use these folklore elements in their writings by weaving myths and traditions into their modern-day storytelling.
A soucouyant, among other names, is a kind of shape-shifting, blood-sucking hag present in Caribbean folklore.
Black science fiction or black speculative fiction is an umbrella term that covers a variety of activities within the science fiction, fantasy, and horror genres where people of the African diaspora take part or are depicted. Some of its defining characteristics include a critique of the social structures leading to black oppression paired with an investment in social change. Black science fiction is "fed by technology but not led by it." This means that black science fiction often explores with human engagement with technology instead of technology as an innate good.
Lucy A. Snyder is an American science fiction, fantasy, humor, horror, and non-fiction writer.
The Salt Roads is a novel by Canadian-Jamaican writer Nalo Hopkinson, published in 2003. It has been categorized as historical fiction, speculative fiction, science fiction, and magical realism.
Dark Matter is an anthology series of science fiction, fantasy, and horror stories and essays produced by people of African descent. The editor of the series is Sheree Thomas. The first book in the series, Dark Matter: A Century of Speculative Fiction from the African Diaspora (2000), won the 2001 World Fantasy Award for Best Anthology. The second book in the Dark Matter series, Dark Matter: Reading the Bones (2004), won the World Fantasy Award for Best Anthology in 2005. A forthcoming third book in the series is tentatively named Dark Matter: Africa Rising. This was finally published at the end of 2022 under the title Africa Risen: A New Era of Speculative Fiction, from Tor Books.
Brown Girl in the Ring is a 1998 novel written by Jamaican-Canadian writer Nalo Hopkinson. The novel contains Afro-Caribbean culture with themes of folklore and magical realism. It was the winning entry in the Warner Aspect First Novel Contest. Since the selection, Hopkinson's novel has received critical acclaim in the form of the 1999 Locus Award for Best First Novel, and the 1999 John W. Campbell Award for Best New Writer.
Mojo: Conjure Stories is an anthology of fantasy and horror short stories, edited by the writer Nalo Hopkinson and published in 2003.
Whispers from the Cotton Tree Root: Caribbean Fabulist Fiction is an anthology of speculative fiction by Caribbean authors, edited by Nalo Hopkinson and published by Invisible Cities Press in 2000. It was nominated for the 2001 World Fantasy Award for Best Anthology. The book is out-of-print. Reviewing it in 2002, James Schellenberg wrote: "Whispers from the Cotton Tree Root is recommended to anyone interested in Caribbean culture. Hopkinson has done wonderful work at organizing and presenting the stories."
Karen Lord is a Barbadian writer of speculative fiction. Her first novel, Redemption in Indigo (2010), retells the story "Ansige Karamba the Glutton" from Senegalese folklore and her second novel, The Best of All Possible Worlds (2013), is an example of social science fiction. Lord also writes on the sociology of religion.
Silver Birch, Blood Moon is an anthology of fantasy stories edited by Terri Windling and Ellen Datlow. It is one of a series of anthologies edited by the pair centered on re-told fairy tales. It was published by Avon Books in May 1999. The anthology contains, among several other stories, the Pat York short story "You Wandered Off Like a Foolish Child To Break Your Heart and Mine", which was original to the anthology and was nominated for a Nebula Award for Best Short Story. The anthology itself won the 2000 World Fantasy Award for Best Anthology.
Falling in Love With Hominids is a collection of short stories by Nalo Hopkinson. One of the stories in this collection, "Flying Lessons" is a new story, while other stories had been written and published in the decade proceeding publication of the collection. In the introduction to the collection, Hopkinson explains the double meaning behind its title. Partially derived from a phrase written by science fiction author Cordwainer Smith, "falling in love with hominids" also describes her own feelings about the human race. When she was younger, Hopkinson writes that she hated human beings, but has grown to love and be fascinated by the human race over the intervening years. The paradox of people who are "capable simultaneously of such great good and such horrifying evil" runs throughout the stories brought together in the collection.
Harold Vincent Milligan was an American professional musician and musical writer. He is best known for his biography about the life of Stephen Foster.
Nebula Awards Showcase 2015 is an anthology of science fiction short works edited by American writer Greg Bear. It was first published in trade paperback by Pyr in December 2015.
Nebula Awards Showcase 2002 is an anthology of award-winning science fiction short works edited by Kim Stanley Robinson. It was first published in trade paperback by Roc/New American Library in April 2002.
Sacatra was a term used in the French Colony of Saint-Domingue to describe the descendant of one black and one griffe parent, a person whose ancestry is 7⁄8ths black and 1⁄8th white. It was one of the many terms used in the colony's racial caste system to measure one's black blood.
Brown Girl Begins is a 2017 Canadian science fiction film, directed by Sharon Lewis. The film was inspired by Nalo Hopkinson's 1998 novel Brown Girl in the Ring, although for budgetary reasons Lewis opted to write and film a prequel story rather than literally adapting the novel itself.
