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Geekadelphia Presents: The Future of Philly Sci-Fi and Fantasy @ The Free Library

Free Library of Philadelphia's Parkway Central Library | Skyline Room - 4th Floor 1901 Vine Street, Philadelphia, PA

Philadelphia has been a nexus for science fiction and fantasy writers and fans for longer than many of us can remember. Numerous authors have made their homes in Philadelphia and produced some of the best works speculative fiction has to offer. The first Hugo Award was given out here. Isaac Asimov lived here. SF grandmaster Samuel […]

FREE

Ferguson is the Future Symposium: Speculative Arts & Social Justice

Incubating Alternative Worlds Through Arts, Activism, and Scholarship

What stories about power, difference, and belonging fuel the social crises we face today? How does visionary fiction offer us models for creating new possible worlds? Can the combined insights and interventions of artists, activists, and scholars plot a different course forward? “Ferguson is the Future” is part of an ongoing collaboration to imagine and create alternative worlds that are more just and representative of humanity.

This symposium brings together a multigenerational panel of speculative fiction writers, activists, filmmakers, academics, and artists to discuss the historical, present-and-future manifestations of a social reality we wish to create and thrive in. As we work to shape change, we will use this space as an incubator and laboratory to grow new visions of the worlds we want to exist. Please join us for a day-long celebration and investigation to explore these timely issues.

PHILA•LALIA small press // hand made book & art fair

Tyler School of Art 2001 N. 13th Street, Philadelphia, PA

PHILALALIA is a three-day small press/hand made book and art fair that brings together poets, publishers, zine makers, book artists, printmakers, comics artists & creative enthusiasts in a vibrant arts venue to showcase & sell their work.

In addition to the book fair, there will be readings and performances, discussions & panels, and workshops and receptions throughout the day, as well as nighttime off-site events in different venues throughout the city. Click here for schedule information.

The fair and all related events are FREE to attend & open to the public.

FREE

NY ART BOOK FAIR at MoMa PS1

MoMa PS1 22-25 Jackson Avenue on 46th Avenue, Long Island City, NY

No, we're not gonna be there. But pick up a hot new story from Eighteen in Temporary Agency collective's premier imprint of queer erotica/intimacies.

FREE

Metropolarity LIVE at the Kelly Writers House WXPN 88.5FM

Kelly Writer's House 3805 Locust Walk , Philadelphia, PA

LIVE at the Writers House is a long-standing collaboration between the people of Kelly Writers House and WXPN (88.5 FM). Six times annually between September and April, the Kelly Writers House hosts a one-hour broadcast of poetry, music, and other spoken-word art, all from our Arts Cafe onto the airwaves at WXPN. LIVE is made possible by generous support from BigRoc.

FREE

AFROFUTURES_UK Conference & Exhibition Weekend

MAD LAB Manchester Digital Laboratory 36-40 Edge Street , Manchester

AfroFutures_UK is a weekend event celebrating the intersection of futurism and the black experience. Featuring artists, academics, and activists, they aim to promote Afrofuturistic endeavours in the arts and technology. Metropolarity's own Rasheedah Phillips, founder of the AfroFuturist Affair and Black Quantum Futurism collective, will be there as a guest speaker.

Afrofuturism NOW!

WORM Boomgaardsstraat 71, Rotterdam

The avant-garde is black! Afrofuturism is a cultural movement that has been existing for a couple of decades in America, Europe and Africa. Some prominent Afrofuturists are Sun Ra, George Clinton, Jeff Mills and Science Fiction writer Octavia Butler. Today, there's a new wave of Afrofuturist writers, performers, visual artists, musicians, filmmakers, designers, bloggers, activists. Contemporary Afrofuturists - Rasheedah Phillips, Ytasha Womack, King Britt and many others - fuse science fiction imagination with avant-garde & DIY culture while reflecting black diaspora.

From 14th to 17th October, WORM will celebrate contemporary Afrofuturism with the festival "Afrofuturism Now!". In preparation of this event, our program will look back at the roots of this super-interesting cultural movement, with an extensive film program and a lecture in June.

LASER LIFE queer sci-fi reading series POTLUCK EDITION

THAT'S RIGHT WE'RE DOING THE DAMN THING ONCE AGAIN

IF YOU ARE A TRANS AND/OR QUEER PHILLY CAT AND WRITE/MAKE SOME KIND OF PERFORMABLE SPECULATIVE FICTION THAT YOU WANT TO SHARE WITH A ROOM PACKED FULL OF YOUR ILK, DROP US A LINE AT METROPOLARITY@GMAIL.COM

Future Perfect: A screening & workshop exploring future imaginaries from the New Right to the AfroFuturist Affair

Slought 4017 Walnut St, Philadelphia, PA

Slought is pleased to announce "Future Perfect," a screening and workshop exploring future imaginaries from the New Right to the AfroFuturist Affair, on Tuesday, November 3, 2015 from 6-8pm. The event will feature the Philadelphia premiere of Daniel Tucker's feature-length video essay Future Perfect: Time Capsules in Reagan Country (54 minutes, 2015), followed by a dialogue between the artist and author Rasheedah Phillips, creator of The AfroFuturist Affair, exploring the liberatory potential of language, and the relationship of writing to social justice and alternative conceptions of the future.

FREE

comma talk with Ras & Eighteen

The Physick House 321 S 4th St, Philadelphia, PA

Ras, Eighteen, maybe Alex too, will be on hand at this week's Comma Talk: Curated & hosted by Maryan Captan, comma talk is a discussion-based and audience interactive reading series featuring Philadelphia's emerging writers and poets. With a goal of exploring and discussing creative process, themes, and techniques used in the featured writers' work, Comma […]

laser life flier by Oskar Castro

THE LASER LIFE SPRING EDITION

LAVA zone 4134 Lancaster Ave, Philadelphia

**what is this is**

**queer sci-fi reading**

OUR CHURCH

The LASER LIFE series of readings is designed to expose the quantumly quantative, psycho-spiritual, panoramic truth of the speculative, to make real the shaman's holler, the mystic's clamour, the soothsayer's griot-speak-- all that was falsely remembered as unreal. Laser Life is a tour beyond the stilted cis-hetero-white-male gaze of normative “science fiction” that plagues the shelves of your local bookstore and Goodreads “to read” lists. It is hoped that Laser Life does not serve as tokenistic or anomalous within the ranks of science fiction, but that the inclusion of our marginalized voices be viewed as not only empowering, necessary or revolutionary, but as intrinsic.

Laser Life is everything, and everything in its place: the nook of all that is possible for us to view: the whole of the universe.

Soft Targets: Vulnerability and Violence in the New Post-Apocalypse

Free Library of Philadelphia Parkway Central Location 1901 Vine Street, Philadelphia, PA

Join Metropolarity, APIARY Magazine, and the Free Library of Philadelphia for an afternoon of writers’ workshops and readings. This year, Metropolarity and APIARY Magazine have joined forces to produce a sci-fi themed issue exploring the nature of vulnerability in our present realities of mass incarceration, mass surveillance, social media, and the potential for revolution. This event is part of the Free Library of Philadelphia's local iteration of the national 7 Days of Genius Festival #thatsgenius

11:00 A.M. – 1:00 P.M. One-on-one writers’ coaching with Apiary Magazine. Bring your own writing, and you’ll receive feedback. First come first served. (Grand Lobby)

1:00 P.M. – 3:00 P.M. SOFT TARGETS: Science Fiction as memoir in a reality of apocalypse. A workshop with the writers from Metropolarity about living under capitalism/militarism and using that as inspiration for writing (Room 108).

3:30 P.M. – 5:00 P.M. Reading and Q & A with Metropolarity and friends (Montgomery Auditorium).

FREE