Writing Speculative Fiction: Roosevelt University Summer Course

In this class, students will write either short or novel-length
speculative fiction. Speculative fiction is a catch-all term meant to
inclusively span the breadth of fantastic fiction, encompassing fiction
ranging from hard science fiction to epic fantasy to ghost stories to
horror to folk and fairy tales to slipstream to magical realism to modern
myth-making and more — any fiction containing a fabulist or speculative
element would be appropriate material for this course.

Instructor: Mary Anne Mohanraj (http://www.mamohanraj.com). Professor
Mohanraj is the Director of the Speculative Literature Foundation, and
founder and past editor-in-chief of Strange Horizons, a Hugo-nominated
online magazine (http://www.strangehorizons.com). She is also the author
of Bodies in Motion (HarperCollins 2005), editor of several print
anthologies, and recipient of an Illinois Arts Council Award.

June 3 – July 28, Saturdays, 9 – 1:30
Auditorium Building, 430 S. Michigan Ave., Chicago, IL 60605

Contact the Roosevelt University Registrar to register: 312-341-3535,
regcc[at]roosevelt[dot]edu. E-mail Professor Mohanraj with questions or for a
copy of the syllabus: mmohanraf[at]roosevelt[dot]edu.

Baker & Hairston Reading

The New York Review of Science Fiction Readings
and the
South Street Seaport Museum Present

Celeste Rita Baker
Andrea Hairston

Dear Friends and Fellow Travelers:
Sheree Renée Thomas (ed., Dark Matter series) is guest curating the New York Review of Science Fiction Reading Series @ the South Street Seaport Museum featuring…. CELESTE RITA BAKER and author ANDREA HAIRSTON. Celeste will read a short story and novel excerpt, and Andrea will read from her debut science fiction novel, MINDSCAPE, published by Aqueduct Press. Join us and bring a friend! The event will occur this Tuesday, May 2nd at 7 PM at the South Street Seaport Museum’s Melville Gallery at 213 Water Street. Doors open at 6:30. More details below. As always, admission is free (though donations are accepted.)

ABOUT THE WRITERS:

Celeste Rita Baker says that when she was young, an ‘other mother’ of hers in St. Thomas, Virgin Islands gave her a journal titled “How Can I Know What I Think Until I See What I Say?” And so she writes. She he tries not to write. She tries to earn money, or sleep or sweep, but the writing urge won’t go away. So she submits. And she writes. And she submits. And it’s worked out pretty well so far. She has published short stories in The Caribbean Writer, Calabash, and Margin: Exploring Modern Magical Realism. Celeste has a story forthcoming in SCARAB and is working on a novel about a Saint who finds herself in the same body as a Black woman in NYC about 50 years from now. And she hopes that she’s not, as her sister says, spreading malfeasance in the world.
Andrea Hairston is a Professor of Theater and Afro-American Studies at Smith College, as well as the Artistic Director of Chrysalis Theatre.
Her plays have been produced at Yale Rep, Rites and Reason, the Kennedy Center, Stage West, and on Public Radio and Television.
She has received many awards for her writing and directing, including an NEA Grant to Playwrights, a Ford Foundation grant to collaborate
with Senegalese Master Drummer Massamba Diop, and a Shubert Fellowship for Playwrighting. She is currently at work on a new novel, Exploding in Slow Motion,
for which she received the 2004 Speculative Literature Foundation’s Older Writer Grant. Mindscape is her first novel.

About Mindscape: “In an explosive future world divided into warring Zones by a mysterious Barrier, Elleni, a spiritual outcast, takes up the mantel of her assassinated mentor and works to bring about world peace. Elleni gets support from an “ethnic throwback,” an action-adventure Entertainment star, and an old Shaman. This motley crew seems no match for the Barrier or the startling coalition of power-hungry politicians, gangsters, and spiritual fundamentalists who prefer the balance of power that interzonal war affords. As Elleni and crew struggle to be agents of change and set the world back on its course, they discover resources within themselves and allies in their world that they couldn’t have imagined.”
The New York Review of Science Fiction Reading Series is currently
in it’s 17th season of providing some of the best writers in speculative
fiction, science fiction fantasy, etc. The series currently recurs
the first Tuesday of every month at the South Street Seaport’s Melville
Gallery, 213 Water Street. Admission is free, but $5 donations are
encouraged to offset costs and buy dinner for the readers. The
producer and curator is radio producer and talk show host Jim
Freund.

WHEN:
Tuesday, 5 / 2 / 6
Doors open at 6:30 — readings begin at 7

WHERE:
The South Street Seaport Museum’s Melville Gallery
213 Water Street (near Beekman)

HOW:
By Subway
Take 2, 3, 4, 5, J, Z, or M to Fulton Street; A and C to
Broadway-Nassau. Walk east on Fulton Street to Water Street

By Bus
Take M15 (South Ferry-bound) down Second Ave. to Fulton Street

By Car
From the West Side: take West Street southbound. Follow signs to
FDR Drive Take underpass, keep right­use Exit 1 at end of underpass. Turn
right on South Street, six blocks.

From the East Side, take FDR Drive south to Exit 3 onto South
Street, Proceed about 1 mile.

LINKS:

http://www.hourwolf.com/nyrsf
http://www.southstseaport.org
http://www.nyrsf.com
http://www.andreahairston.com/
http://www.aqueductpress.com/