On Wednesday 21st October 2026, from 7.30-9.30pm, Stroud Radical Reading Group will host a discussion of the N.K. Jemisin’s book “How Long ‘Til Black Future Month”. We will meet at Borderless Books, 4 London Road, Stroud, GL5 2AG. Entry is free but please bring some cash if you can afford to donate to cover venue costs.
N. K. Jemisin is a three-time Hugo Award winner and bestselling author. In her first short-story collection, she “challenges and delights readers with thought-provoking narratives of destruction, rebirth, and redemption that sharply examine modern society” (Storygraph).
The collection follows an essay of the same name written by Jemisin in 2013 (available for free on her website), “a shameless paean to an Afrofuturist icon, the artist Janelle Monae, [and] also a meditation on how hard it’s been for [Jemisin] to love science fiction and fantasy as a black woman… How terrifying it’s been to realise no one thinks my people have a future. And how gratifying to finally accept myself and begin spinning the futures I want to see” (taken from the introduction to the short story collection).
The book is available from Borderless Books with a 10% discount. Below in our resources section you can find free audio and video resources – including 16 of the 22 stories in the collection. There is also more information about the book (including content warnings), author, and Stroud Radical Reading Group events.
Anyone interested in the book can join us. We do our best to make the sessions welcoming to people who have not been to reading groups or similar settings like university seminars before. We recommend reading the book but you don’t need to in order to come along and listen or ask questions. You also do not need to have attended any of our previous sessions.
Content warnings (submitted by Storygraph users):
- Graphic: Racism, Death, Violence
- Moderate: Rape, Animal death, Sexual content
- Minor: Racial slurs, Slavery, Police brutality
More information about the book (taken from Storygraph):
A collection of thought-provoking narratives of destruction, rebirth, and redemption that sharply examine modern society.
Spirits haunt the flooded streets of New Orleans in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. In a parallel universe, a utopian society watches our world, trying to learn from our mistakes. A black mother in the Jim Crow South must save her daughter from a fey offering impossible promises. And in the Hugo award-nominated short story “The City Born Great,” a young street kid fights to give birth to an old metropolis’s soul.
- “Marvelous and wide-ranging.” — Los Angeles Times
- “Gorgeous” — NPR Books
- “Breathtakingly imaginative and narratively bold.” — Entertainment Weekly
About the author (from Wikipedia):
Nora Keita Jemisin (born September 19, 1972) is an American science fiction and fantasy writer. Her fiction includes a wide range of themes, notably cultural conflict and oppression.
Jemisin has won several awards for her work, including multiple Locus Awards, starting with her first novel. Her Broken Earth series made her the first African-American author to win the Hugo Award for Best Novel, as well as the first author to win in three consecutive years, and the first to win for all three novels in a trilogy. She won a fourth Hugo in 2020 for the novelette Emergency Skin and a fifth in 2022 for the comic book series Far Sector. In 2025, the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers Association named Jemisin the 42nd Damon Knight Memorial Grand Master in recognition of her significant contributions to the literature of science fiction and fantasy.
Resources
- Read one of the following 16 stories of the 22 in the collection for free online – 5 are also available as free audiobooks: “The Ones Who Stay and Fight”, “The City Born Great“, “L’Alchimista” (+ 40 minute audiobook), “The Effluent Engine“, “Cloud Dragon Skies“, “The Trojan Girl“, “Valedictorian“, “The Evaluators“, “Walking Awake“, “Stone Hunger” (+1 hour audiobook), “On the Banks of the River Lex” (+ 36 minute audiobook), “The Narcomancer” (+1 hour audiobook), “Henosis“, “The You Train“, “Non-Zero Probabilities” (+ 25 minute audiobook), and “Sinners, Saints, Dragons, and Haints, in the City Beneath the Still Waters“.
- Read How Long ‘Til Black Future Month? The Toxins of Speculative Fiction, and the Antidote that is Janelle Monae – N.K Jemisin’s original essay – free on her website
- Watch N.K Jemisin introducing herself and her work (4 minutes, embedded below)
- Watch N.K. Jemisin speaking about How Long ‘Til Black Future Month and her work, in conversation by Makeba Lavan – a doctoral candidate in the Department of English at the Graduate Center, CUNY (55 minutes, embedded below)
- Listen to N.K. Jemisin speaking about Octavia Butler’s influence on her writing, and how she processes the present moment in her own fiction (22 minutes)
- N.K. Jemisin’s website, including her blog.
About our events
Stroud Radical Reading Group events are free to attend, though we will make a collection to cover venue hire costs – please bring some cash if you can afford it (a few pounds would be great).
We try to create a comfortable discussion space for everyone, including people who have not been part of a reading group or been to university. We do not want the sessions to feel like school – the idea is that everyone has something to contribute, even if primarily through finding the discussion texts difficult and having questions with other attendees can attempt to answer.
To ensure marginalised people feel welcome, we encourage care and thoughtful contributions that respect people’s identities and lives. We are an LGBTQ+ inclusive and anti-racist space.
Anyone is welcome to listen to the discussion, though we encourage contributions only from those who have read at least some of the book we are discussing.
About the venue
The venue for this session is Borderless Books – an independent bookshop established in February 2026. The shop is “particularly passionate about international literature, including fiction in translation, memoir, and travel writing.” It is based in central Stroud, close to the train station and bus station, with nearby stands to lock bikes (Sub Romms), and parking for cars nearby at Brunel Mall multistorey or the Parliament St car park. There is step-free access to the ground floor where we will meet. There is a toilet, air conditioning, and basic folding chairs. Please get in touch if you’d like to get more of an idea of what the sessions are like or if you have any accessibility needs.
There is an opportunity for more informal discussion after the session in the Ale House pub (around the corner) for anyone who wants to continue chatting after 9.30pm.
