Noted African American science fiction author Nisi Shawl to visit UAH

African American science fiction author Nisi Shawl will visit the UAH campus in October.

Courtesy Photo

Noted African American science fiction author Nisi Shawl will visit the campus of The University of Alabama in Huntsville (UAH) next month.

Shawl will give the talk "Genius Communitas” and address questions from the audience on Monday, Oct. 16, at 6 p.m., in Wilson Hall room 168. Her visit to UAH is sponsored by the Humanities Center and the Department of English. The event is free and open to the public.

"On behalf of the UAH Humanities Center and the English Department, I am delighted to welcome Nisi Shawl to our campus. Shawl is one of the most well-respected and innovative voices in contemporary science fiction and a pioneering figure in Afro-futurist and Black Speculative Fiction," said Dr. Eric Smith, UAH Professor of English, Director of the Humanities Center. Smith organized Shawl's visit to UAH.

Nisi Shawl, is a James Tiptree, Jr. Award winner and current Nebula Award, Hugo Award, and James Tiptree, Jr. Award finalist. She is the author of the 2016 novel Everfair, a work that repurposes the science fictional genre of the alternate history to interrogate imperialisms past and present and the intersection of empire, race, and sexuality. For a sneak peek at Everfair, visit torforgeblog.com.

Shawl's earliest published work appeared in Semiotext(e) alongside the likes of William S. Burroughs and fellow Science Fiction (SF) pioneers William Gibson, Bruce Sterling, and J.G. Ballard. Her 2008 Tiptree Award-winning collection Filter House garnered praise from SF luminaries like Ursula K. Le Guin.

In addition to being a highly prolific short story writer and essayist, Shawl is also editor of several groundbreaking anthologies of Afro-futurist, and feminist fiction. A 1992 graduate of the famed Clarion West Writers Workshop, which launched the career of Octavia E. Butler among numerous other minority writers of SF, Shawl now serves on its board.

In 1997, she founded the Carl Brandon Society devoted to the promotion of racial diversity in SF and fantasy and in 2006 helped to create the society’s Octavia E. Butler Memorial Scholarship. Nisi Shawl’s blog is nisi-la.livejournal.com.

For more information about Shawl's visit to the UAH campus, please contact Dr. Eric Smith at eric.smith@uah.edu.