African American, Cabo Verdean/Wampanoag/Ioway all converge in Jewelle Gomez’s exquisite collection of poetry that explores the legacies of family heritage, history, and identity. Gomez contemplates her sexuality, multi-ethnic and class identities, and what it means to experience love, loss, grief, friendship, and solidarity with other women during times of political upheaval. Gomez’s poems are a gift: at times sumptuous and impassioned, and always striking in their clarity.

“Stephanie Andrea Allen’s story collection embraces the acerbic complexity of Joanna Russ, the practical science of James Tiptree Jr., the moral center of Rod Serling along with the finger-popping, sister sense of your local black beauty shop. Not a combo you want to pass up.”—Jewelle Gomez, author of The Gilda Stories.

In this daring collection of speculative fiction, Stephanie Andrea Allen attends to the lives of Black women, mostly lesbian or queer, all keenly aware of the forces seeking to consume them.

A Black lesbian working the gig economy runs into a trio of motorized scooters and helps them escape from Earth. An enchanted sleep mask gives a woman the gift of slumber, but what will it cost her? A suburban housewife is framed for murder by her homophobic neighbor. And in the follow up to “Luna 6000,” a young woman investigates her mother’s untimely death, and learns the truth about her family.

Stephanie Andrea Allen’s How to Dispatch a Human: Stories and Suggestions is an unapologetic, often humorous, foray into the quotidian magic that envelops Black women’s lives. The eleven stories in this collection are filled with characters who will entice and delight readers as they traverse the worlds around them. With a mix of fabulism, near future, and speculative fictions, Allen reminds us in exquisitely nuanced prose that the fantastical can be found amongst the ordinary.

“What is a Love poem if not a declaration of the ways we love ourselves through others? In This is Not About Love, Krystal A. Smith does just that, showing us pain and healing and lovin’ on yourself. Smith writes, “Forgiveness is not a weapon / it is a learning, it is a lesson / to give to yourself” and this is so true and evident in this collection. This is Not About Love is not about shame, it’s not about holding grief, it’s not about sorrow; Krystal is writing about forgiveness and we all needed that.” —Jason B. Crawford, author of Summertime Fine

“The poems in author Krystal A. Smith's debut collection, This is Not about Love, are everything we need in this moment of isolation. They examine loneliness and togetherness in all their forms -- by choice, by necessity, and by force of circumstance. These poems' longing, desire, pettiness, humor, and devastation mirror all that it is being in and out of relationship.” —Jason Herndon

This is Not About Love: Poems explores the complexities of human emotion and relationships via memory, experience, and imagination. Smith reminds us that love is not a singular emotion, and romantic relationships are not paramount to happiness.

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“Within this revelatory 22-piece anthology of prose and poetry across the horror, fantasy, and science fiction genres, editors Allen and Cherelle have gathered works by some of the best and boldest voices in African-American speculative writing... There’s something for everyone in this outstanding anthology.” --Publisher's Weekly (Starred Review)

Inspired by the work of Black science fiction and speculative fiction writers Octavia Butler, Jewelle Gomez, Nalo Hopkinson, N.K. Jemisin, and others; as well as by the theory of Afro-futurism as defined by Alondra Nelson, BLF Press is excited to announce a collection that encompasses the broad spectrum of Black speculative writing, including science fiction, fantasy, and Afrofuturism, all by Black women writers.

Black From the Future: A Collection of Black Speculative Writing encompasses the broad spectrum of Black speculative writing, including science fiction, fantasy, magical realism, and Afrofuturism, all by Black women writers. Editors Stephanie Andrea Allen and Lauren Cherelle have gathered the voices of twenty emerging and established writers in speculative fiction and poetry; writers who’ve imagined the weird and the wondrous, the futuristic and the fantastical, the shadowy and the sublime.

Contributors include: Jewelle Gomez, Eden Royce, Nicole Sconiers, Morgan Christie, Almah LaVon, Vernita Hall, Stefani Cox, Destine Carrington, Leila Green, K.E. Bell, Kivel Carson, Kristian Astre, LaToya Hankins, M. Shelly Conner, Maya Hughley, Nicole Givens-Kurtz, Riley Ramanathan, Tyhitia Green, Lauren Cherelle, and Stephanie Andrea Allen.

“God's Will and Other Lies is a major storytelling delight.“

Jewelle Gomez, author of The Gilda Stories

“[T]here was so much hurt and pain and fear and sorrow ... that I needed more than one kind of song to sing,” says one of Penny Mickelbury’s characters in God’s Will and Other Lies. Here a cacophony of voices sing, spit, and scream their songs in a collection both historical and absolutely contemporary.

Mickelbury’s characters speak in distinct voices, rife with the cadence of place, and her elderly characters are as uniquely defined as her children. Everyone has a fully realized place at this table.” — Camille-Yvette Welsch, Foreword Reviews

Krystal A. Smith

Praise for Two Moons:

"In all, Smith writes with raw emotion in powerful, voice-driven prose. Reading Smith is like wandering between dreams; her stunning, fantastical worlds play by their own rules, challenging the imagination and encouraging deep feeling." Booklist

"Krystal A. Smith writes of shape shifters, magical herbalists, and women ripe for love. Her collection of stories marries African American mysticism to speculative fiction announcing Smith’s solid place in the next generation of Afro Futurists. With its sensuous language, deftly drawn characters and engaging narrative style, Two Moons shines bright." Jewelle Gomez, The Gilda Stories

“Two Moons takes readers on a whimsical journey to where ordinary women become goddesses and where Black Girl Magic is never denied. You’ll want to dive into these stories and never leave.” Susana Morris, co-editor of Sycorax's Daughters and the Crunk Feminist Collection

Top five favorite in the short stories category on the 2019 Over the Rainbow Recommended Book List.

The Over the Rainbow (OTR) Project is a committee of the Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, and Transgender Round Table (GLBTRT) of the American Library Association (ALA).

2019 Lambda Literary Award Finalist in Lesbian Fiction

Editors: S. (Stephanie) Andrea Allen and Lauren Cherelle

“In Solace, Allen and Cherelle collect an exciting group of LGBTQ women of color writers to explore the power of literature and identity. These words could not be more timely or more important. Read Solace to find comfort, build strength and formulate resolve for the work ahead.” – Julie R. Enszer, author of Avowed

*2017 Foreword INDIES Book of the Year Awards Finalist in LGBT Non-Fiction