Sheree was a guest at the UI Libraries and presented her work on researching 160 years of Afrofuturism. She spoke to students, faculty, and staff on her experiences in the publishing industry and her work on making Afrofuturism central to the realm of Science Fiction. 

Read more about her visit to Iowa: https://theme.uiowa.edu/event/24771

Sheree Renée Thomas is an award-winning fiction writer, poet and editor. Her work is inspired by myth and folklore, natural science and conjure, her roots in Memphis, and in the genius culture created in the Mississippi Delta. Sheree’s stories and poetry explore ordinary people facing extraordinary circumstances. She is the author of Sleeping Under the Tree of Life (Aqueduct Press), honored with a Publishers Weekly Starred Review and longlisted for the 2016 James Tiptree, Jr. Award, and of Shotgun Lullabies (2011), described as “a revelatory work like Jean Toomer’s Cane.” Thomas edited the two Dark Matter black speculative fiction volumes that first introduced W. E. B. Du Bois’s work as science fiction, winning two World Fantasy Awards. Her work appears in numerous anthologies and literary journals, and she is the Associate Editor of Obsidian: Literature & Arts in the African Diaspora (Illinois State University, Normal) and the co-editor of Trouble the Waters: Tales of the Deep Blue (forthcoming 2019 from Rosarium). Honored with fellowships from Breadloaf Environmental, the Millay Colony of Arts, Smith College, the New York Foundation of the Arts, VCCA, Cave Canem Foundation, and the Tennessee Arts Commission among others, Thomas’s multigenre writing explores the hidden wonders in the invisible. - Via Public Space One

Photo: Gabby Rodriguez/Wisdom Dewberry

See a list of books that inspire Sheree here!

"Sheree Renée Thomas - Jackson, MS @ Planet Deep South" via Black Speculative Arts Digital Archive on YouTube.com