Building Diverse Universes with Alex Smith

Join comic book and sci-fi author Alex Smith for a night of diverse and inclusive universe building. Smith will present on existing tropes in sci-fi and speculative fiction and then lead participants through a writing workshop that will focus on the creation of characters and stories that address issues of exploitation, racism, sexism, homophobia and transphobia. Participants should bring their favorite writing tools and ideas for intergalactic / inter dimensional / temporal exploration.

This event will take place at Vox Populi Gallery located at: 319 N. 11st. Philadelphia, PA 19107

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Alex Smith lives in the seams in the cloth of existence where he desperately stitches together universes with one hand and with the other, armed with an espresso tamp, makes valiant attempts to keep his lights on. A member of the sci-fi artist/activist collective Metropolarity (http://metropolarity.net/), the founder of the queer sci-fi reading series Laser Life, and curator of the retro-futurist electro mash-up art-jam Chrome City, Alex's stories and writings embolden the weird, strange, and revolutionary dichotomy of being Black and queer in a world that marginalizes both. Selected by Rosarium Publishing for Stories for Chip an anthology dedicated to the writing of Samuel Delany, and for Black Quantum Futurism's Space-Time Collapse: From the Congo to the Carolinas, it's Smith’s flash fiction collection Gang Stalk Oprah, self-published sci-fi zine A R K D U S T and super-hero space opera comic book BELIEVERS that will kidnap you, convert you, shoot you in the leg and then set you free. Follow: alexoteric.com

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This event is in conjunction with the exhibition “Not Ready To Make Nice: Guerrilla Girls In The Artworld And Beyond" on view until March 17.