Trauma and Healing Through Magic in Speculative Fiction

Free

Wednesday, 7:30 pm EDT April 21, 2021

Online via Zoom

K.M. Szpara, Anita Kopacz, Kerstin Hall, and Lee Mandelo join us for a deep dive into speculative fiction. Each of the authors will discuss their newest works, slated for publication in 2021, and their journeys into the genre. Blending the literary and the unreal, their new books explore themes of trauma and healing in the architecture of other worlds.

K.M. Szpara’s sophomore novel First, Become Ashes is available now. Anita Kopacz’s Shallow Waters (August 3, 2021), Kerstin Hall’s Star Eater (June 22, 2021), and Lee Mandelo’s Summer Sons (September 28, 2021) are available for pre-order!

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In Conversation

K.M. Szpara

K.M. Szpara

K.M. Szpara (he/himme/his) is a queer and trans author who lives in Baltimore, MD, with his tiny dog and goofy cat. He is the author of speculative novels such as First, Become Ashes (2021) and Docile (2020), and a third in 2022 that follows up on his Hugo and Nebula nominated novelette, “Small Changes Over Long Periods of Time.” They’re about cults and trauma, consent and debt, and a horny trans vampire, respectively. His short fiction appears in Tor.com, Uncanny, Lightspeed, and more. You can find himme on the Internet at kmszpara.com and on Twitter and Instagram at @kmszpara.
Anita Kopacz

Anita Kopacz

Anita Kopacz (she/her) is an award-winning writer and spiritual psychologist. She is the former Editor-in-Chief of Heart & Soul magazine and Managing Editor of BeautyCents magazine. When she is not writing, you can find her on the dance floor or traveling the world with her children. Anita lives in New York City with her family. Shallow Waters is her first book.
Kerstin Hall

Kerstin Hall

Kerstin Hall (she/her) is the author of the novella The Border Keeper and the novel Star Eater (publishing June 2021). Her writing has also appeared in Strange Horizons and Fireside. She lives in Cape Town, South Africa.
Lee Mandelo

Lee Mandelo

Lee Mandelo (he/they) is the author of Summer Sons (publishing September 2021). They are a writer, critic, and occasional editor whose fields of interest include speculative and queer fiction, especially when the two coincide. They have been a past nominee for various awards including the Nebula, Lambda, and Hugo; their work can be found in magazines such as Tor.com, Uncanny magazine, Clarkesworld, and Nightmare. They live in Lexington, Kentucky.

Featured Books

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First, Become Ashes

By K.M. Szpara

Published by Tordotcom

PURCHASE

A riveting, page-turning, accessible fantasy on American themes: self-discovery, romance, road trips, and abusive cults.

The Fellowship raised Lark to kill monsters.
His partner betrayed them to the Feds.
But Lark knows his magic is real, and he’ll do anything to complete his quest.

K. M. Szpara follows Docile, one of the most anticipated science fiction novels of 2020, with First, Become Ashes, a fantastic standalone adventure that blends pain and pleasure and will make readers question what is real and what is magical.

Lark spent the first twenty-four years of his life training for a righteous quest: to rid the world of monsters. Alongside his partner Kane, he wore the cage and endured the scourge in order to develop his innate magic. He never thought that when Kane left, he’d next see him in the company of FBI agents and a SWAT team. He never dreamed that the leader of the Fellowship would be brought up on charges of abuse and assault.

He never expected the government would tell him that the monsters aren’t real—that there is no magic, that all his pain was for nothing.

Lark is determined to fulfill his quest, to defeat the monsters he was promised. Along the way he will grapple with the past, confront love, and discover his long-buried truth.

First, Become Ashes contains explicit sadomasochism and sexual content, as well as abuse and consent violations, including rape.
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Shallow Waters

By Anita Kopacz

Published by Atria/Black Privilege Publishing

PURCHASE

In this stirring and lyrical debut novel—perfect for fans of The Water Dancer and the Legacy of Orïsha series—the Yoruba deity of the sea, Yemaya, is brought to vivid life as she discovers the power of Black resilience, love, and feminine strength in antebellum America.

Shallow Waters imagines Yemaya, an Orïsha—a deity in the religion of Africa’s Yoruba people—cast into mid-1800s America. We meet Yemaya as a young woman, still in the care of her mother and not yet fully aware of the spectacular power she possesses to protect herself and those she holds dear.

The journey laid out in Shallow Waters sees Yemaya confront the greatest evils of this era; transcend time and place in search of Obatala, a man who sacrifices his own freedom for the chance at hers; and grow into the powerful woman she was destined to become. We travel alongside Yemaya from her native Africa and on to the “New World,” with vivid pictures of life for those left on the outskirts of power in the nascent Americas.

Yemaya realizes the fighter within, travels the Underground Railroad in search of the mysterious stranger Obatala, and crosses paths with icons of our history on the road to freedom. Shallow Waters is a nourishing work of ritual storytelling from promising debut author Anita Kopacz.

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Star Eater

By Kerstin Hall

Published by Tordotcom

PURCHASE

Elfreda Raughn will avoid pregnancy if it kills her, and one way or another, it will kill her. Though she’s able to stomach her gruesome day-to-day duties, the reality of preserving the Sisterhood of Aytrium’s magical bloodline horrifies her. She wants out, whatever the cost.

So when a shadowy cabal approaches Elfreda with an offer of escape, she leaps at the opportunity. As their spy, she gains access to the highest reaches of the Sisterhood, and enters a glittering world of opulent parties, subtle deceptions, and unexpected bloodshed.

A phantasmagorical indictment of hereditary power, Star Eater takes readers deep into a perilous and uncanny world where even the most powerful women are forced to choose what sacrifices they will make, so that they might have any choice at all.
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Summer Sons

By Lee Mandelo

Published by Tordotcom

PURCHASE

Lee Mandelo’s debut Summer Sons is a sweltering, queer Southern Gothic that crosses Appalachian street racing with academic intrigue, all haunted by hungry ghost.

Andrew and Eddie did everything together, best friends bonded more deeply than brothers, until Eddie left Andrew behind to start his graduate program at Vanderbilt. Six months later, only days before Andrew was to join him in Nashville, Eddie dies of an apparent suicide. He leaves Andrew a horrible inheritance: a roommate he doesn’t know, friends he never asked for, and a gruesome phantom that hungers for him.

As Andrew searches for the truth of Eddie’s death, he uncovers the lies and secrets left behind by the person he trusted most, discovering a family history soaked in blood and death. Whirling between the backstabbing academic world where Eddie spent his days and the circle of hot boys, fast cars, and hard drugs that ruled Eddie’s nights, the walls Andrew has built against the world begin to crumble, letting in the phantom that hungers to possess him.

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