Hey everyone. Happy Tuesday. We are in the midst of summer and time is going by quite quickly. I've been spending some time in the quiet suburbs of Shanghai before heading back to Zhuhai. There's a small but strong artist community here and it has been great getting to know the people here. Otherwise, I have been working on a 4-channel video and prepping for a show in the fall. I have also been recording a ton of interviews with the Las Vegas community through the Rogers Art Loft residency, through which and I am excited to share with you my chat with the amazing Erica Hector Vital-Lazare. Erica is a professor of Creative Writing and Marginalized Voices in Dystopian Literature at the College of Southern Nevada. She is also a poet, writer of fiction, and the co-producer of the photo-narrative installation Obsidian & Neon: Building Black Life and Identity in Las Vegas. Furthermore, Erica is the editor of McSweeney's Of the Diaspora, a series revisiting classic Black works in literature. I thoroughly enjoyed getting to know Erica as we talked about sci-fi and black futurism, reclaiming and revisiting one's past identity, and so many amazing book recommendations. As always, stay safe and healthy, both physically and mentally wherever you are, and I hope you enjoy this.

Links Mentioned:

• Erica's Instagram
• Paule Marshall
• Severance by Ling Ma
• Parable of the Sower
• McSweeney's Of The Diaspora
• Brit Bennett
• Danielle Valore Evans
• Wesley Brown
• Marita Golden
• Zora Neale Hurston
• Richard Wright
• Black Quantum Futurism
• Nnedi Okorafor
• Ralph Ellison
• Ruby Duncan
• Storming Caesars Palace: How Black Mothers Fought Their Own War on Poverty
• Obsidian & Neon
• Womxn of Color Arts Festival
• Marjorie Barrick Museum of Art

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