Most of my friends who do love to read would, at the time, never consider themselves science fiction readers. They associated it with whatever they s… - Sheree Thomas

Good stuff is always being published. We want more “good stuff” and mo’ different good stuff, thank you! Work that reflects other lenses, other values, other world views in addition to the other good stuff that is traditionally published. I couldn’t say if there is a specific number in mind, but there is certainly a lot of encouraging, exciting work being created and shared today in a number of mediums, enough to see the flourishing of multiple communities of speculative writers and artists around the country and around the world. What an amazing, gratifying thing it is to be able to reach for whole volumes of South Asian steampunk, a novel imagining Belgian steampunk, African or Cuban science fiction, or whole volumes of any number of other fascinating bodies of work that might not have been visible two decades ago. If the increasing scholarship and number of Afrofuturism classes are a sign, and the festivals and conferences are a symbol, then new ground is being explored within and beyond the academy and the publishing industry. And that’s progress!

I wondered what it might be like if your dreams—or those of others—took a more lasting toll on us.

Mainly because I am a reader first and foremost and the book that I wanted to read didn't exist at the time. I really went looking for the book and couldn't find it...what I read for pleasure was science fiction. I wanted to read more Octavia Butler; I wanted to read another Tananarive Due book; I even read a LeVar Burton novel. I don't know how to tell you how desperately I was searching.