Fiyah Literary Magazine’s First Issue Is A Standing Ovation For Black Speculative Fiction

Black Speculative Fiction in the year of 2017 has arrived, opening with Fiyah Literary Magazine’s first issue and yes

This is what you came for. This is that imaginative, challenging, entertaining science fiction and fantasy you’ve wanted to read, aimed right at Black experience and Black context, featuring all Black characters. When the setting of the opening story is a Black beauty shop/biotech called The Black Hand Side you know you’re in the right place. When the second story in the magazine is a meditation on Police authoritarianism and brutality as a magical curse, you EXTRA know you’re in the right place. There was not one story in this issue I didn’t enjoy and there are a few in here that I will re-read later, just to enjoy them again and mark the best lines to memory. Here’s the Table of Contents, to give you an idea of the variety represented and the authors you can look forward to:

Long Time Lurker, First Time Bomber — by Malon Edwards

Police Magic — by Brent Lambert

Revival — by Wendi Dunlap

The Shade Caller — by Davaun Sanders

We Have Ended — by V.H. Galloway

  Chesirah — by L.D. Lewis They run the gamut in styles and genres. The opener “Long Time Lurker, First Time Bomber” introduced me the world of solarpunk and I couldn’t be more thrilled. Along with “Police Magic”, both are set in near futures gone wrong, but filled with optimism and possibility. “The Shade Caller” by Davaun Sanders (who also wrote The Seedbearing P…