Rivers Solomon

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Rivers Solomon is a dyke, a Trekkie, a wannabe cyborg queen, a trash princex, a communist, a butch, a femme, a feminist, a she-beast, a rootworker, a mother, a daughter, a diabetic, and a refugee of the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade. They write about life in the margins, where they are firmly at home.

Rivers' debut novel, AN UNKINDNESS OF GHOSTS—pitched as "a science fiction meditation on trans-generational trauma, race, and identity"—is forthcoming from Akashic Books. Like much of Rivers' work, the book blends speculative and literary elements. Genre, like gender, is a social construct, but when pressed, Rivers considers their work in the tradition of afrofuturism.

Though currently based in Cambridge, UK, where they live with their family, Rivers is originally from the United States. There, they received their BA in Comparative Studies in Race and Ethnicity from Stanford University in California and an MFA in Fiction Writing from the Michener Center for Writers at the University of Texas at Austin. They grew up in California, Indiana, Texas, and New York but spent much of their childhood wishing the mothership might come save them. Their literary influences include Ursula Le Guin, Octavia Butler, Alice Walker, Zora Neale Hurston, Ray Bradbury, Jean Toomer, Doris Lessing, and countless more.

Prize anthology mentions

Best American Essays 2018*

Best American Short Stories 2018

* indicates notable/special mention

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