The month of April is also Celebrate Diversity Month, a month to acknowledge and appreciate the richness of all the different kinds of people that make up the Earth. We at Apex believe we should celebrate diversity all year round, but to kick off this month properly, we've made a list of some of our unique authors and their publications. Give them a look below and consider supporting these distinctive writers!
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ChloroPhilia by Cristina Jurado
Would you sacrifice your humanity to save the world?
Kirmen is different from the other inhabitants of the Cloister, whose walls protect them all from the endless storm ravaging Earth. As a result of the Doctor's cruel experiments, his physical form is gradually evolving into something better fit for survival in the world outside.
Kirmen worries about becoming a pariah, an outcast among the other denizens of the domes. But his desire for affection and acceptance, and his humanity, fade away as the Doctor's treatments progress. What will happen when the metamorphosis is complete? What will be left of Kirmen and the group of survivors that he knows and loves?
In English for the first time (translated by Sue Burke), ChloroPhilia, an Ignotus Award-nominated novella by Cristina Jurado, is a strange coming-of-age story while addressing life after an environmental disaster, collective madness, and sacrifices made for the greater good.
About Cristina Jurado
Cristina Jurado is a bilingual author, editor and translator of speculative fiction. In 2019 she became the first female writer to win the Best Novel Ignotus Award (Spain's Hugo Award) for Bionautas. Her recent fiction includes the novella, ChloroPhilia, and her collection of stories, Alphaland. Since 2015 she has ran the Spanish multi-awarded magazine, SuperSonic. In 2020 she was distinguished with Europe's Best SF Promoter Award and started to work as a contributor for the bilingual quarterly Constelación magazine.
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Pimp My Airship by Maurice Broaddus
Warning: Don't Believe the Hype!
All the poet called Sleepy wants to do is spit his verses, smoke chiba, and stay off the COP's radar—all of which becomes impossible once he encounters a professional protestor known as (120 Degrees of) Knowledge Allah. They seen find themselves on the wrong side of local authorities and have to elude the powers that be.
When your heiress Sophine Jefferson's father is murdered, the careful life she'd been constructing for herself tumbles around her. She's quickly drawn into a web of intrigue, politics, and airships, joining with Sleepy and Knowledge Allah in a fight for their freedom. Chased from one end of a retro-fitted Indianapolis to the other, they encounter outlaws, the occasional circus, possibly a medium, and more outlaws. They find themselves in a battle much larger than they imagined: a battle for control of the country and the soul of their people.
The revolution will not be televised!
About the Author
Maurice Broaddus is a community organizer and teacher. His work has appeared in magazines like Lightspeed Magazine, Beneath Ceaseless Skies, Asimov's, Magazine of F&SF, and Uncanny Magazine, with some of his stories having been collected in The Voices of Martyrs. His books include the urban fantasy trilogy, The Knights of Breton Court, the steampunk words, Buffalo Soldier and Pimp My Airship, and the middle grade detective novels, The Usual Suspects and Unfadeable. H is project, Sorcerers, is being adapted as a television show for AMC. As an editor, he's worked on Dark Faith, Fireside Magazine, and Apex Magazine. Learn more at MauriceBroaddus.com.
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Let's Play White by Chesya Burke
The Afrofuturism collection, Let's Play White by Chesya Burke, builds dark fantasy and horror short stories on African and African American history and legend, while playing with what it means to be human.
White brings with it dreams of respect, of wealth, of simply being treated as a human being. It's the one thing Walter will never be. But what if he could play white, the way so many others seem to do? Would it bring him privilege or simply deny the pain? The title story in this collection asks those questions and then moves on to challenge notions of race, privilege, personal choice, and even life and death with equal vigor.
From the spectrum spanning despair and hope in, "What She Saw When They Flew Away," to the stark weave of personal struggles in, "Chocolate Park," Let's Play White speaks with the voices of the overlooked and unheard. "I Make People Do Bad Things" shines a metaphysical light on Harlem's most notorious historical madame, and then, with a deft twist into melancholic humor, "CUE: Change," brings a zombie-esque apocalypse, possibly for the betterment of all mankind.
Gritty and sublime, the stories of Let's Play White feature real people facing the worlds they're given, bringing out the best and the worst of what it means to be human. If you're ready to slip into someone else's skin for a while, then it's time to come play white.
About the Author
Dr. Chesya Burke is an Assistant Professor of English and U.S. Literature and the director of Africana Studies at Stetson University. Having written and published over a hundred stories and articles within the genres of horror, science fiction, comics, and Afrofuturism, her academic research focuses primarily on the intersections of race, gender and genre. Her short story collection, Let's Play White, is being taught in universities around the world, leading Grammy Award winning poet, Nikki Giovanni, to compare Burke's writer to that of Octavia Butler and Toni Morrison, and Samuel Delany naming her the "formidable new master of the macabre."
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Danged Black Thing by Eugen Bacon
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, a Philip K. Dick Award finalist, but always imbued with truth, empathy, and Blackness, Danged Black Thing is a literary knockout.
About the Author
Eugen Bacon is an African Australian author of several novels and fiction collections. She's a twice World Fantasy Award finalist, a British Fantasy Award finalist, a Foreword Book of the Year silver award winner, and was announced in the honor list of the 2022 Otherwise Fellowships for "doing exciting work in gender and speculative fiction." Danged Black Thing was a finalist in the BSFA, Foreword, Aurealis and Australian Shadows Awards, and made the Otherwise Award Honor List as a "sharp collection of Afro-Surrealist work." Eugen's creative work has appeared worldwide, including in Apex Magazine, Award Winning Australian Writing, Fantasy Magazine, Fantasy & Science Fiction, and Year's Best African Speculative Fiction.
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Breath of Life is a collection of the works of author and poet LH Moore, whose history- and Afrofuturism-inspired short stories, poetry, and essays move between and blur the lines between horror, science fiction, and fantasy.
In the short story "Roots On Ya," a roots man in rural Virginia has to undo a crossing... And more. A scientist has a harrowing experience as she discovers more than she bargained for in the depths of underwater cave tunnels in "Rule of Thirds." As a symbol of a new country is constructed, all is not what it seems in "With These Hands: A Tale of Uncommon Labour." In the short story "Here, Kitty," a young woman realizes that what is lost is not always meant to be found. As a young woman and her friends come of age, they discover a family legacy that will change them forever in the short story "A Clink of Crystal Glasses Heard." All three of the "Bice" poems explore The Divine Comedy author Dante Aligheri's obsession with Beatrice—from her biting, unamused point of view.
Find these and more in Breath of Life. With themes of family and identity, rooted solidly in history and imagining the unknown—both here on Earth and beyond—Breath of Life is an exploration of the unexpected.
About the Author
LH Moore is a writer, poet and artist living in the Washington, DC Metro area. Moore has been published in publications such as Apex, FIYAH Magazine and Fireside, the collaborative Chiral Mad 4 anthology; Black Magic Women; the Bram Stoker Award finalist anthology Sycorax's Daughters; the Dark Dreams anthology series (Dark Dreams, Voices from the Other Side, and Whispers in the Night); and the African-American National Biography series published by Harvard/Oxford U. Press.
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Happy Celebrate Diversity Month from Apex Book Company!
