"Every Word Must Conjure"
--from The Road to Khartoum, Bum Rush the Page: A Def Poetry Jam

Sheree R. Thomas
wanganegresse@yahoo.com

Sheree Renee Thomas (Sheree R. Thomas) is a writer, editor, small publisher, educator, visual artist, and mother whose work has appeared in numerous publications and literary journals. 

She is the co-publisher of the literary journal, Anansi: Fiction of the African Diaspora and founder of Wanganegresse Press. Wanga Press's first title, Mojo Rising: Confessions of a 21st Century Conjureman by Arthur Flowers was short-listed for the Hurston/Wright Foundation's LEGACY Award and the PEN Open Book Award. A Cave Canem Fellow, 1999 Clarion West alum, and a 2003 New York Foundation for the Arts Fellow in Poetry, her fiction and poetry are anthologized in Role Call: A Generational Anthology of Social and Political Black Literature and Art (Third World Press), 2001: A Science Fiction Poetry Anthology (Anamnesis Press), Bum Rush the Page: A Def Poetry Jam (Three Rivers) edited by Tony Medina and Louis Reyes Riveres, and Nalo Hopkinson's Mojo: Conjure Stories (Warner 2003), as well as the literary journals Black Renaissance/Renaissance Noire (NYU/Indiana University Press), Meridians: feminism, race, transnationalism (Smith College/Wesleyan University Press), Drumvoices Revue: 10th Anniversary Edition (SIUE), Obsidian III: Literature of the African Diaspora (NCSU), Voices: The Wisconsin Review of African Literatures (University of Wisconsin at Madison), and Ishmael Reed's KONCH. In 2003 she was awarded the Ledig House/LEF Foundation Prize for Fiction for her novel, Bonecarver, and was nominated for the 2003 Rhysling Award in the Short Poem category for her poem, "Starry Crown." Her work, "Black River Ritual" also received Honorable Mention in The Year's Best Fantasy & Horror: Sixteen Annual Collection (St. Martin's Griffin, 2003).  As a journalist and occasional book critic, her reviews have appeared in AALBC.com, Upscale, The Washington Post Book World, Black Issues Book Review, QBR, American Visions, and Emerge Magazine.

A native of Memphis and the mother of two daughters, Thomas is a member of the Beyond Dusa Women's Collective, the Black Pot Mojo Craft Circle,  the New Renaissance Writers Guild, the Speculative Literature Foundation, the Carl Brandon Society, and teaches creative writing and short fiction at the Frederick Douglass Creative Arts Center in Manhattan. Her first anthology, Dark Matter: A Century of Speculative Fiction from the African Diaspora, named a New York Times Notable Book of the Year and a Washington Post Book World Editor's "Rave," won the World Fantasy Award and the Gold Pen Award.  Her second book, Dark Matter: Reading the Bones, was released on January 2, 2004 by Warner Aspect. She is currently editing a third volume in her groundbreaking black science fiction series, tentatively titled Dark Matter: Africa Rising, in addition to Eldersongs, her oral history and poetry program and other writing projects designed to uplift, engage, and enlighten the community.

 

Shotgun Lullabies: Stories & Poems
Click to order via Amazon

Publisher: Aqueduct Press; First edition (January 31, 2011)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 193350059X
ISBN-13: 978-1933500591

In this first collection of the stories and poetry of Sheree Renee Thomas, memory is the only force strong enough to counter the terrors of a scarred and forgetful world.

Thomas's characters are people scraping by in slave quarters and institutional margins, people in search of freedom and transformation who come face to face with apocalyptic powers. Thrown back on their wits and their lore, they turn to unexpected sources to make sense of things: to girl-children, old women, old skills, old magic, and forgotten ties of kinship with the natural world. Rooted in the Mississippi Delta, Thomas's language is the stuff of life and the struggle to call things by their true names. It reaches through time in search of the transformation that will allow us to survive diaspora with memory and soul intact. These shotgun lullabies puncture the walls between us and our past, the people and their birthright.

 

Dark Matter: Reading the Bones
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ISBN: 0446528609
Format: Hardcover, 416pp
Pub. Date: January 2004
Publisher: Warner Books, Incorporated

Including work by: Samuel R. Delany, W. E. B. Du Bois, Tananarive Due, Jewelle Gomez, Nalo Hopkinson, Charles Johnson, Walter Mosley, and many more

Speculative Fiction from the African Diaspora

The critically acclaimed, award-winning anthology Dark Matter was a New York Times Notable Book of the Year and a Washington Post Book World "Rave" Book of the Year. An innovative and landmark collection, it presented some of the most profound, moving, and entertaining speculative fiction from the African diaspora. Now editor Sheree R. Thomas delves further into this inspirational wellspring with a new volume of great stories that illuminate our world...
DARK MATTER: READING THE BONES

Expanding the fields of fantastic fiction, science fiction, and fantasy, this exciting collection of stories, essays, and interviews combines classic tales from great authors with original pieces from emerging black writers. The interests of black writers are manifold; their voices, themes, and aesthetics are as diverse as the homeland of their ancestors. With vision and authenticity, DARK MATTER: READING THE BONES divines greater insight into the stunning variety of the black literary tradition.

This rich collection displays narratives of courage, from women in an African forest challenging deep-rooted cultural expectations to hard-eyed urban men in American housing projects resisting a hostile world. From oral folktales to futuristic speculative fiction, from the comedy of the trickster to haunting meditations on survival, these authors explore love and lore, identity and community.

Compelling, complex, and poignant, this new anthology of African-rooted literature will dazzle you with its multifaceted scope.

 

Contents

Fiction
ibo landing by ihsan bracy
The Quality of Sand by Cherene Sherrard
Yahimba's Choice by Charles R. Saunders
The Glass Bottle Trick by Nalo Hopkinson
Desire by Kiini Ibura Salaam
Recovery from a Fall by David Findlay
Anansi Meets Peter Parker at the Taco Bell on Lexington by Douglas Kearney
The Magical Negro by Nnedi Okorafor-Mbachu
Jesus Christ in Texas by W. E. B. Du Bois
Will the Circle Be Unbroken? by Henry Dumas
'Cause Harlem Needs Heroes by Kevin Brockenbrough
Whipping Boy by Pam Noles
Old Flesh Song by Ibi Aanu Zoboi
Whispers in the Dark by Walter Mosley
Aftermoon by Tananarive Due
Voodoo Vincent and the Astrostoriograms by Tyehimba Jess
The Binary by John Cooley
BLACKout by Jill Robinson
Sweet Dreams by Charles Johnson
Buying Primo Time by Wanda Coleman
Corona by Samuel R. Delany
Maggies by Nisi Shawl
Excerpt from Mindscape by Andrea Hairston
Trance by Kalamu ya Salaam

Essays
The Second Law of Thermodynamics
Transcription of a Panel at the 1997 Black Speculative Fiction Writers Conference Held at Clark Atlanta University
by Jewelle Gomez

Her Pen Could Fly: Remembering Virginia Hamilton
by Nnedi Okorafor-Mbachu

Celebrating the Alien: The Politics of Race and Species in the Juveniles of Andre Norton
by Carol Cooper
 

 

Dark Matter: The Anthology of Science Fiction, Fantasy and Speculative Fiction by Black Writers
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Edited by Sheree R. Thomas

ISBN: 0446525839
Format: Hardcover, 427pp
Pub. Date: July 2000
Publisher: Warner Books, Incorporated
 

Read an excerpt from this fascinating volume

Speculative fiction, fantasy, and science fiction are assumed to be the genres of alternative thought; however, too often these realms of imagination reflect only the Occidental vision and culture. Now an important new anthology, the first of its kind, explodes such preconceptions with more than a century of fantastic fiction by preeminent and emerging authors of the African diaspora, including recipients of literature's most prestigious awards.

This richly vibrant collection of stories and essays displays the brilliance of writers ranging from the early pioneers, such as Charles W. Chesnutt, W. E. B. Du Bois, and George S. Schuyler, to Samuel R. Delany and Octavia E. Butler -- whose classic sf became the springboards for their fame -- to such renowned figures of the African American literary tradition as playwright-critic Amiri Baraka and satirist Ishmael Reed. Dark Matter also highlights a wide spectrum of talents who have garnered both genre and mainstream acclaim, including Steven Barnes, Tananarive Due, Jewelle Gomez, Nalo Hopkinson, Walter Mosley, and Kalamu ya Salaam.

Astonishing, compelling, erotic, and profound stories of worlds within and beyond abound in Dark Matter. This comprehensive, landmark collection is a vital contribution to an exciting universe of fresh metaphor and myth.
 

A few of the Dark Matter Contributors

(l to r) Kalamu ya Salaam, Sheree R. Thomas, Kiini Ibura Salaam, Ama Patterson and Tony Medina

 

Books Reviewed for AALBC.com Brown Girl in the Ring by Nalo Hopkinson Seduced: A Novel by Nelson George

 

Related Links

Black Pot Mojo  (Blog)
http://blackpotmojo.blogspot.com/

Occasional musings, magick, & lore from Sheree Ren'e Thomas.  Editors note: Trust me when I tell you you will love this Blog!

New York Foundation for the Arts - Sheree Ren'e Thomas
http://www.nyfa.org/nyfa_artists_detail.asp?pid=4976

SCIFI.COM Dark Matter: Reading the Bones review by Pamela Sargent
http://www.scifi.com/sfw/advance/26_books.html

Time Warner Books author page - Sheree R. Thomas
http://www.twbookmark.com/authors/52/1933/index.html

Cave Canem
http://www.cavecanempoets.org/

Clarion West
http://clarionwest.org/website/index.html

Frederick Douglass Creative Arts Center
http://www.fdcac.org/

The Carl Brandon Society - supporting speculative fiction writers of color
http://www.carlbrandon.org/

The Speculative Fiction Foundation - supporting excellence in speculative literature
http://www.speculativeliterature.org/

Afrofuturism.net - exploring futurist themes in black cultural production
http://www.afrofuturism.net/

Charles Blockson Literary Collective
http://www.aalbc.com/writers/charlesl.htm