Griots & Galaxies: Mohale Mashigo
The Imagination Desk
In this episode of Griots & Galaxies, Jenna sits down with award-winning singer/songwriter and author Mohale Mashigo. In this conversation, Mohale shares her experiences in multimedia storytelling, and questions if aliens are truly as scary as Westerners seem to think. Mohale Mashigo is a best-selling multi-award-winning writer. Her work includes The Yearning (University of Johannesburg Debut Prize for South African Writing in English 2016) and a collection of speculative fiction short stories; Intruders. Mashigo also writes children's books and comic books. Some of her...
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Griots & Galaxies: Tobi Ogundiran
The Imagination Desk
In this episode of Griots & Galaxies, Chinelo and Yvette sit down with critically-acclaimed author Tobi Ogundiran. In this conversation, Tobi takes us into horror and haunting, talking about how fairytales reveal what different societies fear–and long for. Tobi Ogundiran is the author of the critically acclaimed Jackal, Jackal, a collection of eighteen dark and fantastic tales. Tobi has been nominated for the British Science Fiction Association, Shirley Jackson, Ignyte and Nommo awards. His work has appeared in anthologies such as The Book of Witches and...
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Griots & Galaxies: Ayodele Olofintuade
The Imagination Desk
In this episode of Griots & Galaxies, Jenna and Chinelo sit down with Ifa/Òrìsà scholar and writer Ayodele Olofintuade. In this conversation, Ayodele talks to us about African metaphysics and the importance of queer and gender-expansive characters to resisting colonization. Ayodele Olofintuade is yet to understand the concept of cis-heteronormativity. They are the author of Swallow: Efunsetan Aniwura, Lakiriboto Chronicles: A Brief History of Badly Behaved Women, Eno’s Story, which was shortlisted for the NLNG Prize for Literature in 2011. They are genius at creating...
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Griots & Galaxies: Temi Oh
The Imagination Desk
In this episode of Griots & Galaxies, Chinelo sits down with award-winning author Temi Oh. In this conversation, Temi talks to us about neuroscience, corporate control, and how futures of AI technologies relate to histories of racism and colonialism. Temi Oh wrote her first novel while studying for a BSci in Neuroscience. Her novel, Do You Dream of Terra-Two?, was published by Simon & Schuster. It won the American Library Association’s Alex Award in 2020 and was an NPR Best Book of the year in 2019. She has written stories for Marvel's Black Panther, Dr...
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Griots & Galaxies: Shingai Njeri Kagunda
The Imagination Desk
In this episode of Griots & Galaxies, Yvette and Jenna sit down with award-winning author and editor Shingai Njeri Kagunda. In this conversation, Shingai talks to us about building community across the African diaspora, and challenges us to consider that taking African knowledges seriously means rethinking time itself. Shingai Njeri Kagunda is an Afrosurrealist and Afrofuturist storyteller from Nairobi, Kenya with a Literary Arts MFA from Brown University. Shingai’s work has been featured in the Best American Sci-fi and Fantasy 2020, Year’s Best African Speculative Fiction...
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Griots & Galaxies: Chinelo Onwualu
The Imagination Desk
In this special episode of Griots & Galaxies, Yvette interviews her cohost, editor and author Chinelo Onwualu. Chinelo shares with us her experiences as cofounder of Omenana and a forerunner in African speculative fiction, and where she hopes to see the genre in the future. Chinelo Onwualu is a Nigerian writer and editor living in Toronto. She’s the nonfiction editor of Anathema Magazine, and co-founder of Omenana, a magazine of African Speculative Fiction. Her writing has been featured in several anthologies and magazines, including Slate, Uncanny, and Strange Horizons....
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Griots & Galaxies: Tlotlo Tsamaase
The Imagination Desk
In this episode of Griots & Galaxies, Jenna and Chinelo sit down with award-winning author Tlotlo Tsamaase. In this conversation, Tlotlo talks with us about queerness, the dead, and how African surrealist stories illuminate the politics of African urban landscapes. Tlotlo Tsamaase is a Motswana author. Tlotlo's debut adult novel, Womb City, comes out in January 2024 from Erewhon Books. Xer novella, The Silence of the Wilting Skin, is a 2021 Lambda Literary Award finalist and was shortlisted for a 2021 Nommo Award. Tlotlo has received support from the Rolex Mentor and Protégé...
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Griots & Galaxies: Suyi Davies
The Imagination Desk
In this episode of Griots & Galaxies, Yvette & Jenna sit down with award-winning author and academic Suyi Davis Okungbowa. In this conversation, Suyi talks to us about godpunk, Stranger Things, and how to support African and other marginalized writers in the publishing industry. Suyi Davies Okungbowa is a Nigerian author of fantasy, science fiction and general speculative work. He has published various novels for adults, the latest of which are Warrior of the Wind and Son of the Storm—both of The Nameless Republic epic fantasy trilogy—and the forthcoming Lost Ark...
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Griots & Galaxies: Kemi Ashing-Giwa
The Imagination Desk
In this episode of Griots & Galaxies, Chinelo & Yvette sit down with USA Today bestselling author Kemi Ashing-Giwa. In this conversation, Kemi takes us to galaxies far, far away, reimagining the hero’s journey through African-centered space opera. Kemi Ashing-Giwa is the USA Today bestselling author of The Splinter in the Sky and the forthcoming novella This World Is Not Yours. She studied organismic & evolutionary biology and astrophysics at Harvard, and is now pursuing a PhD in the Earth & Planetary Sciences department at Stanford. Her short fiction has...
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Griots & Galaxies: Wole Talabi
The Imagination Desk
In this episode of Griots & Galaxies, Jenna & Chinelo sit down with author and editor Wole Talabi. In this conversation, Wole speaks about gods going on heists and how technologies hold the potential to bring us together in alternative histories and imagined futures. Wole Talabi is an engineer, writer, and editor from Nigeria. He is the author of the novel SHIGIDI AND THE BRASS HEAD OF OBALUFON. His short fiction has appeared in places like Asimov’s Science Fiction, Lightspeed Magazine, Tor.com and is collected in the books CONVERGENCE PROBLEMS and INCOMPLETE...
info_outlineIn this episode of Griots & Galaxies, Chinelo sits down with award-winning author Temi Oh. In this conversation, Temi talks to us about neuroscience, corporate control, and how futures of AI technologies relate to histories of racism and colonialism.
Temi Oh wrote her first novel while studying for a BSci in Neuroscience. Her novel, Do You Dream of Terra-Two?, was published by Simon & Schuster. It won the American Library Association’s Alex Award in 2020 and was an NPR Best Book of the year in 2019. She has written stories for Marvel's Black Panther, Dr Who and Overwatch. Her most recent novel, MORE PERFECT, was published in 2023. She has written on the Netflix TV series CASTLEVANIA: NOCTURNE and the CBBC series SILVERPOINT.
Griots & Galaxies is produced by the Center for Science and the Imagination, with support from the Institute for Humanities Research and The Transformation Project, all at Arizona State University. The podcast is created and hosted by Jenna Hanchey, Yvette Lisa Ndlovu, and Chinelo Onwualu, with the assistance of sound engineer Bailey Pyritz. The theme music is performed by Sonja Branch and Dethie Sarr Diouf.