Infinite Constellations: An Anthology of Identity, Culture, and Speculative Conjunctions

by Khadijah Queen (Editor), Kiini Ibura Salaam (Editor), Khadijah Queen (Contribution by), Kiini Ibura Salaam (Contribution by), Kenzie Allen (Contribution by)

Overview

A gathering of innovative, speculative fictions by writers of color, both established and emerging
 
The innovative fictions in Infinite Constellations showcase the voices and visions of 30 remarkable writers, both new and established, from the global majority: Native American/First Nation writers, South Asian writers, East Asian writers, Black American writers, Latinx writers, and Caribbean and Middle Eastern writers. These are visions both familiar and strange, but always rooted in the mystery of human relationships, the deep honoring of memory, and the rootedness to place and the centering of culture.

The writers in this anthology mirror, instruct, bind and unbind, myth-make and myth-invert, transform and transmute, make us belly-laugh or hum our understanding, gasp or whisper gently, and remember that sometimes we need to holler and fight as we grieve. Any dangers herein, imagined or observed in poem and story, transport us: moving from latent to extant, then unleashed.

This work does not presume; it presents and blossoms, creating a constellation of appearances, a symphony of belonging.

“In collecting this work,” note editors Khadijah Queen and K. Ibura, “we felt humbled by the love threaded throughout the voices speaking to us in stories and poems that vault beyond expectation and settle in our consciousness as an expansion of what’s possible when we tend to one another with intention. We felt lifted, held aloft in these arrangements of language. We hope that as you read each story and poem, you will find the same sense of empowerment and celebration that we know has sustained us over countless generations, and in their beauty and humor and intelligence and complexity, continue to enrich us still.”

CONTRIBUTORS
George Abraham / Kenzie Allen / Shreya lla Anasuya / Thea Anderson / Wendy Chin-Tanner / Alton Melvar M. Depanas / Yohanca Delgado / Jennifer Elise Foerster / Aerik Francis / André O. Hoilette / Brian K. Hudson / K. Ibura / Pedro Iniguez / Ruth Ellen Kocher / Ra’Niqua Lee / Tonya Liburd / Kenji C. Liu / Shalewa Mackall / Lucien Darjeun Meadows / Melanie Merle / Juan J. Morales / Thirii Myo Kyaw Myint / Cindy Juyound Ok / Daniel José Older / Soham Patel / Lynn C. Pitts/ Khadijah Queen / Sheree Renée Thomas /  Sarah Sophia Yanni / dg nanouk okpik / shakirah peterson
 

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781573669009
Publisher:	University of Alabama Press
Publication date:	03/07/2023
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	280
File size:	1 MB

About the Author

Khadijah Queen is author of six books, including I’m So Fine: A List of Famous Men & What I Had On, praised in O Magazine, The New Yorker, Rain Taxi, and elsewhere as “quietly devastating,” and “a portrait of defiance that turns the male gaze inside out.” An essay about the pandemic, “False Dawn,” appears in Harper’s magazine. Her latest book, Anodyne, won the William Carlos Williams Award for poetry. She holds a PhD in English from the University of Denver.
 
K. Ibura is a writer, editor, and artist from New Orleans—the original home of the Chitimacha Tribe. She writes essays about identity and gender, and fantastical fiction about ancient histories and future imaginings. She is author of two speculative fiction collections—Ancient, Ancient, winner of the James Tiptree Award, and When the World Wounds—and a novel for children When the World Turns Upside Down. Her ebooks examine the emotional underpinnings of the writing life. Learn more about her at kiburabooks.com and kibura.com.
 

Table of Contents

Contents Introduction: Speculating Us | The Editors Oskʌnu·tú | Kenzie Allen She Sang to Me Once at a Place for Hunting Owls | dg nanouk okpik The Swan | Lynn C. Pitts Anti-Confessional, Again | George Abraham Plink | Yohanca Delgado Dream of a Space Tattoo | Juan J. Morales Carville National Leprosarium, 1954 | Wendy Chin-Tanner Hello, Ghost | Soham Patel The Sacred Interrupted | Mary Lou Johnson Digital Medicine | Brian K. Hudson reflection on spices | Sarah Sophia Yanni Against Allegory (I = Eve & Satan) | George Abraham how to battle | Ruth Ellen Kocher My Mother Told Me I Am Under Shango | Tonya Liburd From Senegal to Senatobia | Sheree Renée Thomas Returning | Aerik Francis Above Ground | Melanie Merle Red Green Blue | Cindy Juyoung Ok Violet | Lucien Darjeun Meadows After,word | George Abraham how can there be so much death and also so much love | Sarah Sophia Yanni Dream of the Sun Spirit | Juan J. Morales The edge of descent, digression’s highway | Jennifer Elise Foerster Mermaid Names | Ra’Niqua Lee The Last Kingdom | Jennifer Elise Foerster Yangon | Thirii Myo Kyaw Myint letter to the hiring manager | Sarah Sophia Yanni Ways to Use Silhig Lánot | Alton Melvar M Dapanas Dream of a Wolf | Juan J. Morales Antelope Canyon Hotel | Thea Anderson Transmigrations: A Future History of Multiple Bodies of Water | Kenji C. Liu A Final Song for the Ages | Pedro Iniguez on bended knee | shakirah peterson MILE 22— | Lucien Darjeun Meadows One week away and the forest has changed | Jennifer Elise Foerster Playing MacBeth at the Electra Theatre on Beadon Street | Shreya Ila Anasuya sealing the room | André O. Hoilette Sufficiency | Shalewa Mackall canon | Sarah Sophia Yanni The Longest Stretch | Lucien Darjeun Meadows DownRiver | Melanie Merle Date: Post Glacial | dg nanouk okpik The Passing | Daniel José Older Contributor Bios Notes & Acknowledgements Reading & Teaching Guide About the Editors

Editorial Reviews

"This anthology, doesn’t just offer one or two surprises, it is full of surprises. It made me want to find the editors at a convention somewhere, or any other similar gathering, pull up, and spend a long evening discussing books and authors and incredible works. I still have a lot to learn."
—Arley Sorg, Lightspeed Magazine

"Imagine my excitement when I saw Queen and Ibura’s introduction. Instead of an essay-like structure or a letter to the reader, their discussion of how the stories expound on the premise is interjected with quotes from many of the pieces in said collection. Their introduction is a fascinating piece of creative nonfiction in and of itself."
—Alex Brown, Book Jockey Alex

"Infinite Constellations: An Anthology of Identity, Culture, and Speculative Conjunctions is a solemn beauty, a bold and experimental cultural degustation."
—Eugene Bacon, Locus Magazine

"Selves are cultivated and crafted by the norms, institutions, and ideologies of their era, a process that can be constrictive and traumatic, particularly for minority communities. The page, however, offers an opportunity to imagine new worlds for the self to inhabit—and new selves to inhabit the world. This is precisely what editors K. Ibura and Khadijah Queen offer readers in Infinite Constellations: An Anthology of Identity, Culture, and Speculative Conjunctions."
—PoetsWriters

From the Publisher