Day and Night Books of Mardou Fox

Nisi Shawl's first novel, Everfair, wasa finalist for the 2016 Nebula Award. In 2009 their Aqueduct storycollection Filter House received the Otherwise Award. They havepublished three other short fiction collections--Something More andMore (Aqueduct, 2010), A Primer to Nisi Shawl (Dark Moon Books,2017), and Talk Like a Man (PM Press, 2019). Shawl is, with CynthiaWard, the author of Writing the Other: A Practical Approach(Aqueduct, 2005), and has edited numerous anthologies, including theWorld Fantasy Award-winning New Suns: Speculative Fiction by Peopleof Color (Solaris, 2019), Strange Matings: Science Fiction, Feminism,African American Voices, and Octavia E. Butler with Rebecca Holden(Aqueduct, 2013), and Stories for Chip: A Tribute to Samuel R. Delanywith Bill Campbell (Rosarium, 2015).

“A novel full of art and magic; sex, murder and love, The Day and Night Books of Mardou Fox casts a spell on the reader. Nisi Shawl tells the moving tale of a writer’s life, rich with insight and meaning, pain and pleasure. A short book, but not a small book.”—Victor LaValle, author of Lone Women “Step back, Kerouac! I loved this fabulist reckoning with the legacy of the Beats from the perspective of an overlooked member of their circle: a singular black writer who is no one’s muse. Shawl’s generous gifts bring ‘Marlene Todd,’ a.k.a. ‘Mardou Fox,’  to complex vibrancy in a brilliant act of literary comeuppance.” —Alaya Dawn Johnson, World Fantasy Award-winning author of Trouble the Saints"Shawl(Everfair)wows in this alternate history of the Beat generation told throughthe diaries of an overlooked Black poet.… Thisconcise novel packs a powerful punch."—Publishers Weekly (starred review)"Whether she’s writing immersive andimaginative fiction or tracing the history of a genre, NisiShawl’s work is never less than compelling. Her new novel TheDay and Night Books of Mardou Fox combines these aspects of herwork, drawing on the life of Beat poet Alene Lee to tell a story ofliterary dynamism and otherworldly visitations."  —Reactor Magazine