Premiere Potter Pundit and Friend of this Blog Dr. Amy H. Sturgis has edited a special issue of Apex, “a monthly science fiction, fantasy, and horror magazine featuring original, mind-bending short fiction from many of the top pros of the field.”
Prof Sturgis, as many of you know, is a published authority on Rowling, Tolkien, and Lovecraft, on American history, on dystopian and science fiction, all things Star Wars, fandoms and cross-media adaptations, and Native American subjects. Which is to say, the closest thing to a Renaissance scholar I know.
She was a frequent guest on MuggleNet Academia because her areas of expertise were relevant in every other episode we recorded (not to mention that she is brilliant, funny, and super savvy about what works on podcasts). The MNet show, ‘Harry Potter and the Indian in the Cupboard,’ which featured her insights about Rowling’s gaffes in her PotterMore ‘History of Ilvermorny’ was the most down-loaded show in that popular program’s history.
I learned today about and spent the morning reading the special issue of Apex mentioned above (and listening to Dr Sturgis read a short story by Allison Mills as well), an issue devoted to Indigenous American fantasists. Why is that worth your time? From the introduction:
Native voices are not safe. They may be beautiful and thought-provoking and wise; they are also inherently disruptive, because by existing they are inconvenient, even threatening, to the comfortable stories told in and by the mainstream.
I see the rise of Indigenous futurism today as a natural development, because the First Nations have always looked forward; that is why they have survived all attempts to erase them. For that matter, genre fiction has always stood at the periphery, observing and critiquing the majority and the mundane. The marriage is a natural one.
I finished reading Killers of the Flower Moon last night, the history of the reign of terror that the Osage Nation in Oklahoma suffered from 1918 to at least 1931. No doubt reading about a nightmare in the early years of my adopted home’s statehood colored my thinking about and my agreement with Dr Sturgis’ thesis about Native voices and their “natural marriage” with fantasy fiction. I recommend the issue to you with the hope, almost an expectation, that you will enjoy the challenge and depth of it as I have.
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