Silhouette of a figure standing before a dramatic orange and purple cloudscape over a dark landscape.

Are you writing a Black Horror story, imagining alternative futures and possibilities using Afrofuturism, or using both genres? I’m using both Black Horror and Afrofuturism but more as a daydream or fragmented memory, something between a flashback and a premonition. My story pulls from my real life as a Black queer person in America and imagines a future where the trauma we carry becomes currency, but even then, safety is still an illusion. Your project requires you to explore a real-world issue impacting the Black community. Which real-world issue will your story confront or address? Why did you choose this issue? My story confronts the ongoing trauma and violence surrounding Black queer identity, especially how our bodies and DNA are commodified while our safety remains neglected. I chose this issue because even in spaces where we are supposedly “accepted,” we still aren’t protected. I’ve lived the horror of being both visible and invisible, desired and discarded all based on how others perceive my race, gender, and sexuality. That contradiction is still real today and I imagine it only mutates deeper in the future. One paragraph explaining your initial brainstorm on the plot of your story. What’s happening in your story? The story moves like a memory glitch, one moment I’m walking down a street in Jamestown, Ny, in my 20s, feeling the weight of stares that turn into threats being in a rural town during Trumps first run. Then next I’m 42 in a slick, sterile future where my See more