The Stories of NYC: Fantastic Fiction with Joy Sanchez-Taylor

The ‘With Books’ option includes all titles required for this group with a 10% discount from our Bookstore.

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Meeting Dates:
6/24, 7/15, 8/5
Online via Zoom

In recognition of the 400th anniversary of the establishment of New York City in 1624, we’re exploring The Stories of NYC.

New York City has been the setting of countless artistic efforts, but what is it about the city that makes creators want to engage with it? What magic does the city contain? This reading group will discuss three novels that take varying speculative approaches to writing the city. We will travel back in time to an alternate pre-WWII NYC with a gifted assassin, visit a diasporic community building a new home after their island disappears, and come back from abroad to discover a city that has gained consciousness. This mixture of NYC settings with fantastic or magical elements breathes new life into the NYC story genre by highlighting the variety of peoples and communities that make this city great. If NYC is a city of dreams, then fantastic stories are the ones that can best express its potential to make dreams into reality.

Please read Johnson’s Trouble the Saints in advance of the first meeting.

• Session I: Trouble the Saints by Alaya Dawn Johnson
• Session II: Ballad and Dagger by Daniel José Older
• Session III: The City We Became by N.K. Jemisin

What to expect from this reading group: Some historical context will open the course and then the discussion will open to the group.

Please Note: All virtual classes are recorded. Please click here for information about our recording policy.