Reading Wednesday

Read Parable of the Sower and Parable of the Talents by Octavia E. Butler, a 1990s speculative fiction duology set in a dystopian 2020s-30s that occasionally rhymes eerily with the actual real-world 2020s. Both books are centered on Lauren Olamina - a teenage girl (when her story starts in 2024) with the power to feel others' emotions/pain, who starts a new religion, Earthseed - although the second book weaves Lauren's epistolary narrative with other POVs. Harrowing but very, very good.

Read Shit Cassandra Saw That She Didn't Tell the Trojans Because At That Point Fuck Them Anyway by Gwen E. Kirby (SmokeLong Quarterly, 2017), a short story/flash narrative about how maybe not everything is terrible.