A ground-breaking anthology of haunting speculative stories by contemporary Black Canadian writers that explore growth, futurity, and joy.
This bold and innovative anthology of speculative short fiction reveals and uplifts the spectacular imaginings, reveries, reflections, experiments, and hopes of Black writers in Canada. A woman attends her mother’s latest resurrection, only to encounter family she’s never met. A postdoc instructor navigates an almost-life in an Elsewhere realm of safety and comfort. After social collapse, a former sex worker leaves her precarious station, and her memories, behind. A woman isolating from a new virus starts hallucinating. In lyrical fragments, a young nanny accepts a job with a peculiar employer. A medium is tasked with summoning a spirit that hits too close to home. And two teenagers test a friendship over magic carpet flying practice. These breathtaking stories explore natural and urban landscapes, living and dead relationships, economic catastrophe, love, and desire—all while celebrating the persistent and ever-changing self, and envisioning beautiful Black futures.
Featuring stories by:
Trynne Delaney
francesca ekwuyasi
Whitney French
Aline-Mwezi Niyonsenga
Chimedum Ohaegbu
Suyi Davies Okungbowa
Chinelo Onwualu
Lue Palmer
Zalika Reid-Benta
A ground-breaking anthology of haunting speculative stories by contemporary Black Canadian writers that explore growth, futurity, and joy.
This bold and innovative anthology of speculative short fiction reveals and uplifts the spectacular imaginings, reveries, reflections, experiments, and hopes of Black writers in Canada. A woman attends her mother’s latest resurrection, only to encounter family she’s never met. A postdoc instructor navigates an almost-life in an Elsewhere realm of safety and comfort. After social collapse, a former sex worker leaves her precarious station, and her memories, behind. A woman isolating from a new virus starts hallucinating. In lyrical fragments, a young nanny accepts a job with a peculiar employer. A medium is tasked with summoning a spirit that hits too close to home. And two teenagers test a friendship over magic carpet flying practice. These breathtaking stories explore natural and urban landscapes, living and dead relationships, economic catastrophe, love, and desire—all while celebrating the persistent and ever-changing self, and envisioning beautiful Black futures.
Featuring stories by:
Trynne Delaney
francesca ekwuyasi
Whitney French
Aline-Mwezi Niyonsenga
Chimedum Ohaegbu
Suyi Davies Okungbowa
Chinelo Onwualu
Lue Palmer
Zalika Reid-Benta
| Published By | House of Anansi Press Inc — Oct 14, 2025 |
| Specifications | 288 pages | 5.5 in x 8 in |
| Edited by |
TERESE MASON PIERRE (she/her) is a writer, poet, and editor whose work has appeared in the Walrus, ROOM, Brick, Quill & Quire, Uncanny, and Year’s Best Canadian Fantasy and Science Fiction. Her work has been nominated for the bpNichol Chapbook Award, Best of the Net, the Aurora Award, the Rhysling Award, and the Ignyte Award. She is one of ten winners of the Writers’ Trust Journey Prize and was named a Writers’ Trust Rising Star. Terese is the chief programming officer at Augur, a speculative arts nonprofit, and co-director of AugurCon, Augur’s biennial speculative arts conference. Terese lives in Toronto. |
| Edited by |
|
TERESE MASON PIERRE (she/her) is a writer, poet, and editor whose work has appeared in the Walrus, ROOM, Brick, Quill & Quire, Uncanny, and Year’s Best Canadian Fantasy and Science Fiction. Her work has been nominated for the bpNichol Chapbook Award, Best of the Net, the Aurora Award, the Rhysling Award, and the Ignyte Award. She is one of ten winners of the Writers’ Trust Journey Prize and was named a Writers’ Trust Rising Star. Terese is the chief programming officer at Augur, a speculative arts nonprofit, and co-director of AugurCon, Augur’s biennial speculative arts conference. Terese lives in Toronto. |
“Selected, edited, and skilfully situated … As the Earth Dreams packs powerful short fiction into a wide-ranging, not-so-quiet anthology of work by emerging and more established Black voices.” — Quill & Quire, STARRED Review
“As the Earth Dreams offers a distinctly Canadian vision of Black life that is as lush and expansive as it is tender and rooted.” — The Walrus
“The real treat [of As the Earth Dreams] is in realizing how much of what’s described sounds like the way we live now.” – Toronto Star
“Futuristic, parallel, and ancient—yet always deeply human.” — Literary Review of Canada
“As the Earth Dreams is exactly as its namesake, our imagination and dreams are boundless.” — The Miramichi Reader
“The stories in As the Earth Dreams comprise a powerful, gracefully written, thematically varied contribution by Black Canadian writers to the documentation of their own futures.” — Ancillary Review of Books
“As the Earth Dreams is an original and vibrant addition to the Canadian science fiction landscape.” — The Seaboard Review
“A bold and innovative anthology.” — Punk Ass Book Jockey Blog
“Rich, original, and varied.” —Larissa Lai, author of The Tiger Flu
“A jewel in the Canadian fantasy and science fiction landscape.” —Sonia Sulaiman, editor of Thyme Travellers: An Anthology of Palestinian Speculative Fiction
“Brilliant stories that challenge and provoke.” —Arley Sorg, literary agent and editor