Episode 3.3 Reading for Alternative Futures, or Hannah’s Sad Bookclub

Secret Feminist Agenda

this is the face I make when I’m having a bad week

Not quite a content warning but definitely a heads up, that I’m talking a little bit this week about death and grief and apocalyptic despair. But only a little! Mostly I’m talking about the books that have been not just blowing my mind this year, but helping me to think differently about death, loss, climate change, and other hard topics. I’m talking Afrofuturism and Indigenous Futurism, queer horror, magical realism, and the way the work of queer, trans, and BIPOC writers opens up possibilities outside of the ideologically oppressive structures of Western narrative!!! Links!

• Want to read some speculative fiction by BIPOC writers in Canada? Here’s a great list to start you off.
• Here’s a list off where to start with Afrofuturism, and here’s an article about Afrofuturism and the beauty looks in Black Panther.
• Definitely also read this beautiful piece on Indigenous Futurisms by the very brilliant writer and curator Lindsay Nixon.
• You can read more about Eden Robinson’s new book, Trickster Drift, in this excellent interview.
• I do a kind of mediocre job of defining reproductive futurism in this episode, so read up on it here.
• Oh yeah, and if you want to know more about the cultural specificity of magical realism, this is a good starting point.
• And finally, here are all the books I talked about!
  • N.K. Jemisin: The Fifth Season, The Obelisk Gate, and The Stone Sky
  • Cherie Dimaline: The Marrow Thieves
  • Eden Robinson: Son of a Trickster
  • Amber Dawn: Sodom Road Exit
  • Carmen Maria Machado: Her Body and Other Parties
  • Jesmyn Ward: Sing, Unburied, Sing

Read Transcription

The podcast theme song is “Mesh Shirt” by Mom Jeans off their album “Chub Rub.” Listen to the whole album here or learn more about them here. Follow me @hkpmcgregor, follow Kaarina @kaarinasaurus, and tweet about the podcast using #SecretFeministAgenda.

Secret Feminist Agenda is recorded and produced by Hannah McGregor on the traditional and unceded territories of the Squamish, Musqueam, and Tsleil-Waututh First Nations.