Kickstarter Signal Boost: THE COOKOUT: An Anthology of Speculative Fiction from the African Diaspora, Edited by Erin Brown, Emmalia Harrington, Tonya R. Moore, & P.C. Verrone

Coming up in March we’re planning a podcast Signal Boost interview with writer/editor Tonya R. Moore about The Cookout, an anthology of science fiction and fantasy stories by Black authors of the African diaspora, centering on the traditions of “the cookout” — the joy, the drama, and the delicious food!

A Kickstarter campaign is currently going on to support the anthology and help pay the contributors, who include Brent Lambert, Eden Royce, DaVaun Sanders, and Sheree Renée Thomas to date.

There is just FIVE more days left to support this campaign, before we have the live recording with Moore or are able to release the podcast, so we’re also boosting this now on the blog. They are close to their goal, so be sure to check it out and help if you are able!

Moore is a Jamaican speculative fiction writer and editor based in Florida. She is the editor-in-chief at Rogue Star Magazine, Poetry Editor at Solarpunk Magazine, and an associate writer at Galactic Journey. Her latest short story publications include “Water Baby”, published in The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction and “Anansi and the Astronaut”, published in the Spacefunk! Anthology.

Moore is co-editing the collection with three others: 1) Erin Brown, a poet and author of horror, fabulist, and fantasy short fiction who has been published in FIYAH, Nightmare, Midnight and Indigo, The Deadlands, and many other venues, 2) Emmalia Harrington, a disabled QBIPOC novelist of Walk on Grey Ruins, whose short stories can be found at FIYAH, Abyss and Apex, Flame Tree Press, and elsewhere, and 3) P.C. Verrone, an author and playwright whose work has appeared in FIYAH, Nightmare, PodCastle, and numerous anthologies, and whose debut novel Rabbit, Fox, Tar is forthcoming from Catapult this year.

Why The Cookout?

There are so many reasons why we fell in love with this concept and why we’re so excited about this book. Our shared love of good stories and good food obviously jumps immediately to mind. In addition, we’re building this anthology because we want to

• give something back to the publishing community that helped us 
• create, support, and uplift afrofuturism and afrosurrelealist art and artists
• promote authenticity of cultural representation in speculative fiction 

How did this idea come about?

Looking for the origins of the practice — poring through history book after history book after archeology article after religious text — it seemed the very ancients considered the tradition ancient, even in their time. Could it be that since the beginning of humanity, in the cradle of the world, where two or more were gathered in the name of food, medicine, love, and community, there one may have found The Cookout?

Across the African Diaspora, with the fluctuations of ancestral knowledge and cultural root, in wealth and happiness, in sickness and danger, in celebration and faith and fierce resistance, in every nook and cranny of the world, “The Cookout” calls to something in our blood that unites us in love and community. And when the world began to digitize itself, this impulse found a foothold in the social media sphere, in the new and mischievous colloquial use of “The Cookout” as well as such innovations as pandemic-style remote feasts with family and friends. As a force, “The Cookout” is unstoppable! So we decided to see just how far it can go.

Can it reach the depths of the ocean? Can we put picnic tables in the stars? Gather round the grill in another dimension? Source our seasonings in the furthest realms of our imaginations?

Let’s see, shall we?

Find more information on The Cookout and its editors/contributors on its website.

And help support the project on Kickstarter.