Arkdust

Alex Smith is a Philadelphia artist and activist whose writing⁠—from science fiction, to superhero comics, to music and art critique⁠—delves into worlds often forgotten, inhabited by people often marginalized. His work as a critic has appeared on Bandcamp and Pitchfork, as well as in local press for Artblog, The Key, and Philadelphia Gay News, highlighting the strange worlds inhabited by gender, class and racial outliers. As does his fiction.A founding member of art/activist insurrectionist sci-fi collective Metropolarity, curator of queer sci-fi and Afro-cyberpunk events Laser Life and Chrome City, Smith found a home for his noisy take on science fiction in anarchist community centers and on the pages of self-produced, stitched together at midnight zines and chapbooks. He’s used these platforms to read and present at Temple University, Moore College, Bucknell University, and The New School about sci-fi and its relationship to displaced Black and queer communities. Arkdust is the culmination of that work, weird and wild stories that imagine futures for the rest of us.

“Get this extraordinary collection of stories! Now! They're worth it! The sensibility is SF, but I wouldn't call them that. The language is explosive, energetic. You should be in that armchair, this word-wonder in your hand, reading.”--Samuel R. Delany"Superbly crafted, Arkdust is a harrowing, action-packed, wildly imaginative collection of stories. More than simply revealing us to ourselves and warning us of impending doom, it exposes how there really is no line between the apocalypse and the now; this is the end and no one told us--certainly not so creatively. This book is vivid, terrifying, rebellious, and dazzling. What a fever dream. What a clarion call. It will stay with me for a very long time. Alex Smith is a master storyteller. —Robert Jones, Jr., author of The New York Times bestselling novel, The Prophets"A sharp sweet hit of the weirdest, hottest drug you ever took. Every page is splattered with sex and action and heart and blood and I couldn't f*cking stop reading."- Sam J. Miller, Nebula-Award-winning author of Blackfish City and Boys, Beasts and Men"Alex Smith is criminally slept-on. Arkdust explodes onto the scene in a flurry of stardust and cosmic radiation. From time-lost activists to fallen queer superheroes, this book conjures image after image and world after world glowing with energy, humanity, and unmatched vision. The world is a better place because this book, this talent exists!"– Alex Jennings, author of The Ballad of Perilous Graves“Arkdust adds the texture and “divine mingle-mangle” of unapologetically Black and queer lives to vibrant, Delanyesque speculative fiction, which ranges from superhero stories to futuristic cyberpunk to experimental weird fiction. Smith’s technicolor prose practically jumps off the page, leaving after-images that shiver and glow.”—Craig Laurance Gidney, author of A Spectral Hue and The Nectar of Nightmares (Stories)