A Place Between Waking and Forgetting is dark speculative fiction, an Afro-Irreal collection in which transformative stories of culture, diversity, climate change, unlimited futures, collisions of worlds, mythology, and more, inhabit. It cases black people stories in bold and evocative text, at times deeply flawed but potentially redeemable protagonists in rich hues of blackness and light. Something beautiful, something dark in lyrical language packed with affection, dread, anguish and hope.
Featuring the World Fantasy Award finalist story The Devil Don't Come With Horns, this collection of short stories is the latest offering by a genre-bending, multi-award winner.
It arrives with a poetic introduction by award-winning writer and poet Linda D. Addison, the first African-American recipient of the world-renowned HWA Bram Stoker Award, and has received five awards for her collections. Addison has been honored with the HWA Lifetime Achievement Award, HWA Mentor of the Year and SFPA Grand Master of Fantastic Poetry.
-Long-listed for the 2024 British Science Fiction Association Award, Best Non-Fiction
-2024 Locus Recommended Reading List
-One of Brittle Paper's 100 Notable African Books of 2024
-One of Open Country Mag's 60 Notable African Books of 2024
In this vibrant and approachable book, award-winning writers of black speculative fiction bring together excerpts from their work and creative reflections on futurisms with original essays.
-Long-listed for the 2024 British Science Fiction Association Award, Best Non-Fiction
-2024 Locus Recommended Reading List
-One of Brittle Paper's 100 Notable African Books of 2024
-One of Open Country Mag's 60 Notable African Books of 2024
In this vibrant and approachable book, award-winning writers of black speculative fiction bring together excerpts from their work and creative reflections on futurisms with original essays.
Danged Black Thing is an extraordinary collection of stories about love and migration, gender and class, patriarchy and womanhood, from a remarkable and original voice. Traversing the West and Africa, they celebrate the author's hybridity with breathtaking sensuousness and lyricism.
Simbiyu wins a scholarship to study in Australia, but cannot leave behind a world of walking barefoot, the orange sun, and his longing for a once pillow-soft mother. In his past, darkness rose from the river and something nameless and mystical continues to envelop his life. In A Taste of Unguja sweet taarab music, full of want, seeps into a mother's life on the streets of Melbourne as she evokes the powers of her ancestors to seek vengeance on her cursed ex. In the cyberfunk of Unlimited Data Natukunda, a village woman, gives her all for her family in Old Kampala. Other stories explore what happens when the water runs dry-and who pays, capture the devastating effects on women and children of societies in which men hold all the power, and themes of being, belonging, and otherness.
Speculative, realistic, and even mythological, but always imbued with truth, empathy, and Blackness, Danged Black Thing is a literary knockout.
In this debut collection of personal essays, Eugen Bacon offers critical perspectives on blackness, Afrofuturism, colonialism, historicity, and (mis)recognition as she explores the untapped possibilities of speculative fiction. Using a variety of analytic, narrative, and anecdotal techniques, Bacon shares her experiences as an African Australian woman, mother, and writer who occupies a liminal space that is betwixt worlds and genres. She also considers work by other writers-ranging from Roland Barthes and Jorge Luis Borges to Suyi Davies Okungbowa, Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o, Toni Morrison, Octavia Butler, and Sheree Renée Thomas-in an effort to chart a path towards greater social and cultural truth. Literary, adventurous, and insightful, Bacon excavates the world(s) that not only construct contemporary authorship but the fluid nature of identity itself.
An Earnest Blackness received the British Fantasy Award for best work of nonfiction. It was also a finalist for the Locus and Ditmar Awards.
In this lush interplanetary tale, Novic is an immortal Sayneth priest who flouts the conventions of a matriarchal society by choosing a name for his child. This act initiates chaos that splits the boy in two, unleashing a Jekyll-and-Hyde child upon the universe. Named T-Mo by his mother and Odysseus by his father, the story spans the boy's lifetime - from his early years with his mother Silhouette on planet Grovea to his travels to Earth where he meets and marries Salem, and together they bear a hybrid named Myra. The story unfolds through the eyes of these three distinctive women: Silhouette, Salem and Myra. As they confront their fears and navigate the treacherous paths to love and accept T-Mo/Odysseus and themselves, the darkness in Odysseus urges them to unbearable choices that threaten their very existence.
In this engaging and accessible guide, Eugen Bacon explores writing speculative fiction as a creative practice, drawing from her own work, and the work of other writers and theorists, to interrogate its various subgenres. Through analysis of writers such as Stephen King, J.R.R. Tolkien and J. K. Rowling, this book scrutinises the characteristics of speculative fiction, considers the potential of writing cross genre and covers the challenges of targeting young adults. It connects critical and cultural theories to the practice of creative writing, examining how they might apply to the process of writing speculative fiction. Both practical and critical in its evaluative gaze, it also looks at e-publishing as a promising publishing medium for speculative fiction.
This is essential reading for undergraduate and postgraduate students of creative writing, looking to develop a critical awareness of, and practical skills for, the writing of speculative fiction. It is also a valuable resource for creators, commentators and consumers of contemporary speculative fiction. Chapter 8, 'Horror and the Paranormal' was shortlisted for the Australasian Horror Writers Association (AHWA)'s 2019 Australian Shadows Awards.Eugen Bacon's work is deemed cheeky with a fierce intelligence in text that's resplendent, delicious, dark and evocative. NPR called her novel Claiming T-Mo 'a confounding mysterious tour de force.' The Road to Woop Woop and Other Stories imbues the same lushness in a writerly language that is Bacon's own. This peculiar hybrid of the untraditional, the extraordinary within, without and along the borders of normalcy will hypnotize and absorb the reader with tales that refuse to be labeled. The stories in this collection are dirges that cross genres in astounding ways. Over 20 provocative tales, with seven original to this collection, by an award-winning African-Australian author.
Long ago, a good man transgressed and was brutally punished, his physical form killed and his soul split asunder. Now, one half of his ancient soul seeks to reunite with its lost twin, a search that leaves murder in its wake...
In the streets of modern day Sydney a killer stalks the night, slaughtering innocents, leaving bodies mutilated. The victims seem unconnected, yet Investigating Officer Ivory Tembo is convinced the killings are anything but random. The case soon leads Ivory into places she never imagined. In order to stop the killings and save the life of the man she loves, she must reach deep into her past, uncover secrets of her heritage, break a demon's curse, and somehow unify two worlds.
Ivory's Story deftly combines the contemporary thriller with darker, older traditions, and marks the arrival of an exciting new voice on the genre fiction scene.
A new star is born in the emerald skies of Fantasy, and its name is Eugen Bacon. - Nuzo Onoh, author of The Reluctant Dead
A murder mystery, an adventure story and a spiritual journey all rolled up into one, which not only entertains but also leaves us pondering the deeper questions. - Denise O'Hagan, author of The Beating Heart
Ivory's Story speaks of places and moments that bind us. The myths and mysteries that draw us in. A powerful blend of African and Australian speculative fiction. - Dominique Hecq, award-winning poet, novelist, short story writer
A volume of exquisite prose poetry and speculative micro-lit pieces by internationally renowned author Eugen Bacon. Forty-eight compositions in all, comprising twenty-six previously published and twenty-two original pieces written specially for this book.
Complementing the written word are a series of full page illustrations commissioned by the author from artist Elena Betti; thirty-five stunning images that enhance the reading experience.
Through the prism of sharp speculative fiction, the darkest hues of our world are revealed, reflected, refracted into a myriad of brilliant shards. Each piece dazzles, cutting quick and deep. Absolutely unforgettable. - Lisa L. Hannett, award-winning author of Songs for Dark Seasons
Such energy, boldness, and unexpected leaps and turns; whether going at a cracking pace or pausing reflectively, the fiction in this quirky work is vibrant and engaging. As a multi-media work, it is page-turning and confronting. Powerful stuff. - Dominique Hecq, award-winning poet, novelist, short story writer
Chasing Whispers is a unique Afro-irrealist collection of black speculative fiction in transformative stories of culture, longing, hybridity, unlimited futures, a collision of worlds and folklore. It contains 13 stories, 11 of which are original, with a commanding introduction by D. Harlan Wilson. The collection is aligned with the themes of Eugen Bacon's other fiction, and her recognition in the honor list of the 2022 Otherwise Fellowships for doing exciting work in gender and speculative fiction.
Chasing Whispers casts a gaze at mostly women and children haunted by patriarchy, in stories packed with affection, dread, anguish and hope. The connecting theme is a black protagonist with a deep longing for someone, someplace, something... and a recurring phrase in each story: a deep and terrible sadness.
Foreword INDIES - 2023 Finalist Science Fiction
Something is happening to Green. He is an ordinary guy, time-jumping forward at a startling, uncontainable rate. He is grappling to understand his present; his relationship is wholly tattered; his ultimate destination is a colossal question mark. Zada is a scientist in the future. She is mindful of Green's conundrum and seeks to unravel it by going backwards in time. Can she stop him from jumping to infinity? Their point of intersection is fleeting but memorable, each one's travel impacting the other's past or future. And one of them doesn't even know it yet. Secondhand Daylight is a reverse story in alternate timelines between two protagonists whose lives must one day intersect. A titillating offering from World Fantasy Award-finalist Eugen Bacon, an Otherwise Fellowships honouree for 'doing exciting work in gender and speculative fiction'. In collaboration with three-time British Fantasy Society Award-winner Andrew Hook.
Languages of Water is a rare but intimate fusion of East, West and Africa, a stunning artefact of writerly immersion and cultural exchange. This child of digital collaboration brings together writers, illustrators and translators of poetry, fiction and essays, and refuses to be contained.
In a playful interrogation of French literary theorist, critic and philosopher Roland Barthes' le plaisir du texte and death of the author, Languages of Water opens with the homing story 'When the Water Stops'. Cross-cultural creators interpret the story in different forms of itself, offering subversive fiction, poetry, essays, monochrome graphics, sudden fiction, and translations of the homing story in English, Swahili, French, Cantonese, Malay, Vietnamese and Bengali.
A bold and exceptional offering edited by World Fantasy Award finalist and award-winning author Eugen Bacon-an Otherwise Fellowships honouree for 'doing exciting work in gender and speculative fiction'. Featuring works by acclaimed and award-winning authors, essayists, translators, scholars and artists.
From what began as a dialog between two adventurous writers curious about the shape-shifter called a prose poem comes a stunning collection that is a disruption of language-a provocation. Speculate is a hybrid of speculative poetry and flash fiction, thrumming in a pulse of jouissance and intensity that chases the impossible.
One might describe some pieces as complex, relentless, but above all, speculating or crossing borders in the fantastic playground of language. We invite you to leap onto the stage of your own imaginings, plunge into what Henry James called the house of fiction.
This is how we envision ours:
A single detached house tossed out of Speculate settles across your dreams. Skin, paper-thin, desiccated and scripted like a collage, covers the absence of doors, thresholds, verandas, stairways and footpaths. But there are windows and louvers that look out to rain-licked grasslands. This is a house unsealed, with the sky art and earth art washed or rolled into each other on adjacent floors and walls. The roof, unlettered, is made of two sliding suns of creamed panels, foundation-like. Round the back is a rope ladder that will win you over. Up, up you go. Enter with care as you would any fiction that blurs the boundaries of genre, mode or form, that goes beyond the written and borrows from the unwritten. Together we can interweave art with language and watch it shape itself anew in an endless process of spontaneity and play because we can be here and there and away, all at once.
-Dominique Hecq and Eugen Bacon
From what began as a dialog between two adventurous writers curious about the shape-shifter called a prose poem comes a stunning collection that is a disruption of language-a provocation. Speculate is a hybrid of speculative poetry and flash fiction, thrumming in a pulse of jouissance and intensity that chases the impossible.
One might describe some pieces as complex, relentless, but above all, speculating or crossing borders in the fantastic playground of language. We invite you to leap onto the stage of your own imaginings, plunge into what Henry James called the house of fiction.
This is how we envision ours:
A single detached house tossed out of Speculate settles across your dreams. Skin, paper-thin, desiccated and scripted like a collage, covers the absence of doors, thresholds, verandas, stairways and footpaths. But there are windows and louvers that look out to rain-licked grasslands. This is a house unsealed, with the sky art and earth art washed or rolled into each other on adjacent floors and walls. The roof, unlettered, is made of two sliding suns of creamed panels, foundation-like. Round the back is a rope ladder that will win you over. Up, up you go. Enter with care as you would any fiction that blurs the boundaries of genre, mode or form, that goes beyond the written and borrows from the unwritten. Together we can interweave art with language and watch it shape itself anew in an endless process of spontaneity and play because we can be here and there and away, all at once.
-Dominique Hecq and Eugen Bacon
In this engaging and accessible guide, Eugen Bacon explores writing speculative fiction as a creative practice, drawing from her own work, and the work of other writers and theorists, to interrogate its various subgenres. Through analysis of writers such as Stephen King, J.R.R. Tolkien and J. K. Rowling, this book scrutinises the characteristics of speculative fiction, considers the potential of writing cross genre and covers the challenges of targeting young adults. It connects critical and cultural theories to the practice of creative writing, examining how they might apply to the process of writing speculative fiction. Both practical and critical in its evaluative gaze, it also looks at e-publishing as a promising publishing medium for speculative fiction.
This is essential reading for undergraduate and postgraduate students of creative writing, looking to develop a critical awareness of, and practical skills for, the writing of speculative fiction. It is also a valuable resource for creators, commentators and consumers of contemporary speculative fiction. Chapter 8, 'Horror and the Paranormal' was shortlisted for the Australasian Horror Writers Association (AHWA)'s 2019 Australian Shadows Awards.