A strange sickness is sweeping through Detroit, leaving unbearable grief and overwhelmed city hospitals and morgues in its wake. That’s the eerily familiar world into which writer adrienne maree brown’s debut novella drops us. Grievers is the first story in a trilogy published by Black Dawn, a speculative fiction imprint from AK Press.

The seed of this story took root a long time before any of us had ever heard of COVID-19, and yet the book is a work of speculative fiction that feels anything but. It’s an auspicious and affecting story for everyone who’s lost something, but especially for Black Detroiters. 

GUEST: 

adrienne maree brown, writer-in-residence at the Emergent Strategy Ideation Institute and author of several non-fiction and fiction books, including Pleasure Activism, Emergent Strategy, and Grievers 

Looking for more conversations from Stateside? Right this way.

If you like what you hear on the pod, consider supporting our work.

Stateside’s theme music is by 14KT.

Additional music by Blue Dot Sessions.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.