Octavia's Brood ─ Science Fiction Stories from Social Justice Movements

Whenever we envision a world without war, without prisons, without injustice, we are engaging in speculative fiction. Radicals and activists devote their lives to envisioning and creating another world. What better vehicle for them to explore their work and its possibilities than through writing original science fiction stories?

Walidah Imarisha and adrienne maree brown brought together twenty radical writers to do just that. The result is Octavia's Brood: Science Fiction Stories from Social Justice Movements, an enchanting and enlightening collection that uncovers truths buried in the fantastic, and injects a healthy dose of imagination and innovation into our search for truth. It is the first book to explore the connections between radical science fiction and movements for social change, using visionary prose to weave strands of real-life experiences—inequality and exploitation, struggle and solidarity—into new ways of understanding ourselves, the world around us, and all the other selves and worlds that could be.

The stories are rounded off with essays by Tananarive Due and Mumia Abu-Jamal, as well as a resource guide to other literary, cinematic, and musical examples of radical science fiction.

Walidah Imarisha is a writer, organizer, educator, and spoken word artist. She is the author of the poetry collection Scars/Stars and facilitates writing workshops at schools, community centers, youth detention facilities, and women's prisons.

adrienne maree brown is a 2013 Kresge Literary Arts Fellow writing science fiction in Detroit, Michigan. She received a 2013 Detroit Knight Arts Challenge Award to run a series of Octavia Butler–based writing workshops.