r#BlackSpeculativeFiction
-
By Peggy Arthur Greetings! “She hadn’t realized how long it takes to become somebody else, or how lonely it can be living in a world not meant for you.”— Brit Bennett, The Vanishing Half 🌱 Root Memory: The Town That Worshiped Light In The Vanishing Half, Brit Bennett plants us in a town so committed to lightness—of skin,…
-
By Peggy Arthur Greetings! Okay, I’m not sure if this counts as a hobby or a full-blown obsession—but I love Korean skincare. Honestly, I love skincare in general, but over the past two years, it’s evolved into something deeper. What started as casual curiosity has become a joyful ritual. It involves testing, layering, and basking…
-
“What if the enslaved were never silent?” By Peggy Arthur Greetings! Why It’s Rooted James is not just a reimagining of The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. It’s a literary reckoning—a powerful act of reclamation. Told through the eyes of the enslaved Jim—here named James—Percival Everett unearths a history long buried under myth and whitewashed nostalgia. Everett dares…
-
“What if memory never leaves the body?” By Peggy Arthur Greetings! Why It’s Rooted Beloved is a ghost story—but not the kind that simply haunts. It lingers like cigar smoke in the fabric, like memory in the soil. It tells the truth: that the past never dies—it lives in us. Through Morrison’s storytelling, we witness what…
-
By: Peggy Arthur Greetings! Have you ever had a really, really bad day? I’m not talking about a stub-your-toe-and-move-on kind of bad. I mean a Murphy’s Law kind of day. Anything that can go wrong does go wrong. You spill coffee on your shirt right before a meeting.Your car won’t start.Your deadline vanishes in a flurry of…
-
By Peggy Arthur Greetings! What happens when a woman visits her grandmother’s home for the first time at age 40? That meeting uncovers generations of love, land, and loss. Happyland by Dolan Perkins-Valdez is a beautiful, soul-stirring work of historical fiction that begins with that very question. This novel is set in the Carolinas. It…
-
By Peggy Arthur Greetings! As a Southern fiction author, inspiration doesn’t always arrive on command—it’s something I seek out intentionally. When I need to refill my creative well, I go to the source. 1. The Local Library One of my favorite places to find inspiration is my local library. There’s something grounding about being surrounded…
-
Some places you leave. Others never leave you. By Peggy Arthur Greetings! You know those cities that stay with you? Not because of the snapshots you took or the souvenirs you grabbed—but because the air felt thick with memory. These are those places for me. Here are four U.S. cities I’d return to in a…
-
By Peggy Arthur Hi~ I’m Peggy, an avid reader and author. There are few places that feel as sacred to me as a library. Between the quiet rustle of pages and the scent of old books lies a kind of magic. It is a magic that only readers truly understand. I’ve been an avid reader…
Peggy Arthur 