D+Q Picks of the Week: Hot Comb's ode to black hair, Poet Ariana Reines, near future cli-fi, and trans femme fantasy

June 18, 2019

D+Q Picks of the Week: Hot Comb's ode to black hair, Poet Ariana Reines, near future cli-fi, and trans femme fantasy
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Hot Comb

Ebony Flowers

An auspicioius debut examining the culuture of hair from the Rona Jaffe Foundation award-winning cartoonist Hot Comb offers a poignant glimpse into Black women's...

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Hot Comb, Ebody Flowers

So excited for this expressive and generous collection of short connected stories attentive to black girls’ and women’s relationship to their hair. It features the salons, the products, the hairstyles, the peer pressure, the connotations of hair, its texture, shape, and care. Ebony Flower’s watercolour-stroked drawings in blacks, whites, and greys show movement and form with effortless style.

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A Sand Book

Ariana Reines

"Mind-blowing." —Kim GordonDeadpan, epic, and searingly charismatic, A Sand Book is at once relatable and out-of-this-world. In poems tracking climate change, bystanderism, state murder,...

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A Sand Book - Ariana Reines


With only Kim Gordon’s commanding words - “mind-blowing” - at the back of the book, Ariana Reines’ latest book of poetry A Sand Book is much-anticipated and shines golden like the sun. Tackling our present days with a fresh and decisive voice, she recounts, conveys, feels, and associates with enthusiastic spirit that is all her own.

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Penny Nichols

MK Reed, Greg Means

Somehow, sarcastic Penny's gotten roped into helping make an amateur slasher film. With a team of flakes and weirdos, she's probably the only one...

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Penny Nichols - MK Reed

This story follows the titular Penny Nichols as a bored and aimless temp professional. Her trajectory drastically shifts when she becomes part of a horror movie production - the ragtag team has energy, enthusiasm, and no budget. A book for the imaginative spirits that need to, must, make their visions of the future come to life.

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Oval

Elvia Wilk

“Elvia Wilk’s Oval is a marvel. At the core of this seductive, acute, superbly-contemporary update of mid-period J.G. Ballard lies a deep-beating, deep-dreaming heart.”—Jonathan Lethem"A...

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Oval, Elvia Wilk


Set in a near-future Berlin, Oval is a penetrative look at what is to come. Wilk imagines the city as a place where artists are hired by corporations as consultants, and the price of housing sky-rockets in the name of “sustainability”. This is one to curl up with and steel oneself for the impending future.

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Maiden, Mother, and Crone

Maiden, Mother, and Crone: Fantastical Trans Femmes is a Bedside Press anthology of new fantastical short fiction by trans women and trans feminine writers...

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Maiden, mother, crone: fantastical trans femmes, ed. Gwen Benaway


Proudly recognized as the first anthology by trans femme authors writing in magic and fantasy, Maiden, mother, crone offers a groundbreaking collection foregrounding trans heroines. With stories by Gwen Benaway, Casey Plett, Kai Cheng Thom, among many others, we encounter worlds and languages that stir the spirit with visionary imagination.