The Seers’ Table November 2016
The Seers Table!
Autumn is upon us and the nights are growing darker. All the more reason to crack open a good book and read by the fire. Here are our suggestions for this month:
Kate Maruyama recommends:
Nisi Shawl is an African-American writer, editor, and journalist. She is best known as an author of science fiction and fantasy short stories, but her fantastic fiction enters that horror zone in the spirit of Octavia Butler and reflects real-world diversity of gender, sexual orientation, race, colonialism, physical ability, age, and other sociocultural factors.
She is the co-author (with Cynthia Ward) of Writing the Other: Bridging Cultural Differences for Successful Fiction, a creative-writing handbook derived from the authors’ workshop of the same name, in which participants explore techniques to help them write credible characters outside their own cultural experience Shawl’s short stories have appeared in Asimov’s SF Magazine, The Infinite Matrix, Strange Horizons, Semiotext(e), and numerous other magazines and anthologies.
Shawl is a member of the Science Fiction Writers of America and a 1992 graduate of the Clarion West Writers Workshop. She is a board member of Clarion West and one of the founders of the Carl Brandon Society. Her stories have been shortlisted for the Theodore Sturgeon Award, the Gaylactic Spectrum Award, and the Carl Brandon Society Parallax Award, and Writing the Other received special mention for the James Tiptree, Jr. Award. In 2008, she won the James Tiptree, Jr. Award for Filter House, which was also shortlisted for a World Fantasy Award. In 2009 her novella “Good Boy” was additionally nominated for a World Fantasy Award. Contact: http://www.nisishawl.com/.
Ari Drew recommends:
If you have ever come across Gabino Iglesias’ brief biography on Amazon, you will find that it serves as an amusing representation of the subversive, genre-bending writer’s craft. Detailing how he “was born somewhere, but then moved to another place” and that he currently “hides near a dumpster in Austin” where he “impersonates a PhD student,” you certainly get a sense for Iglesias’ often facetious, self-deprecating nature. The author manages to parlay his biting wit and knack for clever prose into admittedly dark, transgressive works of short fiction and novels that are engrossing in their often savage 
and horrific nature, while also maintaining notes of bizarre humor throughout. Iglesias frames his fiction in familiar horror/thriller casings, but his style is undeniably unique when all is said and done. Iglesias dives into deep sea horror in Hungry Darkness and dabbles in Santeria in his latest brutal novel Zero Saints, which also finds the author blending Spanish into his narrative set against Mexican and Texas backdrops. As Zero Saints is only his second novel ever, Iglesias has boldly established himself as a unique voice in horror, unafraid to explore the darkest reaches of humanity and beyond with a determination to have a good time.
To keep up with the latest from Iglesias, check out his official Twitter page: https://twitter.com/Gabino_Iglesias
Linda Addison recommends:
Tracey Baptiste was born in Trinidad, where she grew up on jumbie stories and fairy tales, and decided to be a writer at the wise old age of three. It took a few more years to get her first publishing contract though. Her debut, a young adult novel titled Angel’s Grace, was named one of the 100 best books for reading and sharing by New York City librarians. Tracey is a former teacher, textbook editor, ballerina, and amateur librarian who once started up a library in her house in the hope that everyone would bring their books back late and she would be rich! You know, like other librarians. She is now a wife and mom and lives in New Jersey, where she writes and edits books for kids from a very cozy office in her house that is filled with more toys than she can count. 
The Jumbies is her second novel.
Check out her work: The Jumbies (Algonquin Young Readers, 2015), Angel’s Grace (Simon & Schuster, 2009), The Totally Gross History of Ancient Egypt (Rosen Publishing Group, 2016).
Find her online at https://traceybaptiste.wordpress.com; @TraceyBaptiste.
L. Marie Wood is a psychological horror author with two novels and three short story collections under her belt. Her penchant for the quiet side of horror has resonated with readers for over 13 years. Initially, her approach was through poetry, where she succeeded in publishing over twenty pieces under the pen name elle wood. She went on to write four screenplays and a novella before settling down to write the horror novel that dwelled within her for years.
Her novel, Crescendo, received critical acclaim from such entities as Midwest Book Review and Buried.com. 
The novel was called “a highly complex work” by Book Publicity, LTD. She teaches Intro to Horror Fiction at West Virginia University.
Her work: Dollar Scares #5 – Malady (Amazon Digital Services LLC, 2015); Anathema (CreateSpace, 2013); The Promise Keeper (PublishAmerica, 2012); Crescendo. Welcome home. Death awaits (Booktango, 2012).
Find her online at https://www.facebook.com/groups/L.MarieWoodReaderGroup/; https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/5709521.L_Marie_Wood
Kate Jonez recommends:
Carlos Hernandez is the author of over 30 works of fiction, poetry, prose, and drama. By day, he is an Associate Professor at the City University of New York, where he teaches English courses at BMCC and is a member of the doctoral faculty at The CUNY Graduate Center. Carlos is also a game designer, currently serving as lead writer on Meriwether, a CRPG about the Lewis and Clark Expedition. He lives in Queens, which is most famous for not being Brooklyn.
The Assimilated Cuban’s Guide to Quantum Santeria
Assimilation is founded on surrender and being broken; this collection of short stories features people who have assimilated, but are actively trying to reclaim their lives. There is a concert pianist who defies death by uploading his soul into his piano. There is the person who draws his mother’s ghost out of the bullet hole in the wall near where she was executed. Another character has a horn growing out of the center of his forehead—punishment for an affair, but he is too weak to end it, too much in love to be moral. Another story recounts a panda breeder looking for tips. And then there’s a border patrol agent trying to figure out how to process undocumented visitors from another galaxy. Poignant by way of funny, and philosophical by way of grotesque, Hernandez’s stories are prayers for self-sovereignty.
Contact: http://quantumsanteria.com/
Ace Antonio-Hall recommends:
Nora K. Jemisin is an author of speculative fiction short stories and novels who lives and writes in Brooklyn, NY. Her work has been nominated for the Hugo (three times), the Nebula (four times), and the World Fantasy Award (twice), and has been shortlisted for the Crawford, the Gemmell Morningstar, and the Tiptree. She has won a Locus Award for Best First Novel, as well as the Romantic Times Reviewer’s Choice Award (three times). In 2015, she became the first black person to win the Best Novel Hugo for The Fifth Season.
You can find an example of her work in The Trojan Girl, first published in Weird Tales #357 (2011), and reprinted in Escape Pod in audio. http://nkjemisin.com/2012/08/the-trojan-girl/
Contact: https://twitter.com/nkjemisin; Web site: http://nkjemisin.com.
Janet Holden recommends:
Letitia Trent is the author of the novels Almost Dark and Echo Lake, as well as the poetry collection, One Perfect Bird, and numerous chapbooks. Her story, “Wilderness,” is featured in both the anthology Exigencies and The Best Horror of the Year, Volume 8, edited by Ellen Datlow. Her work has been nominated for a Shirley Jackson award and has appeared in Smokelong Quarterly, Fence, Sou’Wester, and 32 Poems, among others. Her nonfiction has appeared in The Daily Beast and The Nervous Breakdown. Trent lives with her husband, son, and three black cats in the Ozarks.
About Almost Dark: Darkness Past Meets Darkness Present. Claire, a private and outwardly content librarian, carries a secret: she is wracked with guilt 
over her twin brother Sam’s accidental death fifteen years earlier. Claire’s quiet life is threatened when Justin, an aggressive business developer, announces the renovation of Farmington’s oldest textile factory, which is the scene of Sam’s death, along with many other mysterious accidents throughout its long history. Claire not only feels a personal connection to the factory, but she also begins to receive “visitations” from her brother, which cause her to question her sanity. As Justin moves forward with his plans to renew the factory, Claire and the town discover that in Farmington, there is no clear line between the past and the present.
