UPDATE (July 8,2013): Octavia's Brood reached our initial goal today! Thank you all so much! Now we're going for our stretch goals: an expanded national tour, compensating writers, full color art in the book, and more! Please help us to keep spreading the word, and please keep contributing!
Here is a short video about why you should keep contributing to Octavia's Brood: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sz-42HtB0gY
Also in the media gallery here on indiegogo, you can see short videos from different Octavia's Brood writers talking about their stories and the larger project.
Short Summary
Greetings! We are Adrienne Maree Brown and Walidah Imarisha, two community organizers, educators, writers and self-proclaimed nerds. We have individually and collectively been working to bridge the visionary qualities of science/speculative fiction with radical community organizing practice.
We thought there was no better way to do this than with our current book project: Octavia's Brood: Science Fiction Stories from Social Justice Movements. It’s an anthology of radical science and speculative fiction written by organizers and activists.
What We Need
We need to raise $8,277 to cover the cost of designing and printing the anthology (with a release date of summer 2014), as well as to fund a national tour where we will not only do readings of the anthology, but writing workshops and organizing strategy sessions where we can support communities turning their visionary ideas into concrete action!
We have received overwhelming support from everyone we tell about Octavia’s Brood. Because we believe in the principles of communities organizing and supporting themselves, we are turning to our strongest supporters and allies, our visionary community, to birth Octavia’s Brood into the world.
Stretch Goals
If we reach our $8,277 goal, Octavia’s Brood will come into being, and we have no doubt it will be incredible given the caliber of the stories we have. We can also begin the national tour with at least 3 cities.
But if we go over our initial goal, that money will not only be useful but can make this an even fuller and richer project that we feel will truly embody the spirit of Octavia Butler and move her legacy forward through us, her brood.
- REACHED!!! $8,277 – Main goal: Octavia’s Brood is published
- REACHED!!!! $15,000 – Expanded 10 city tour
- This would enable us to bring the national tour to 10 cities - that includes not only book readings, but writing workshops, organizing strategy sessions, book club meetings and sci fi themed parties! For every $500 we raise, we’ll be able to add another city to the tour!
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$22,000 - Provide compensations writers and advisors
Everyone in this project right now is doing it for the love and because we are all inspired and excited about the project! But we would love to be able to create sustainable models of supporting artists to carry on this visionary work.
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$27,000 – – Color art and e-book
We want to make the book accessible to everyone and so want to develop an electronic version. We also want to include in full color the beautiful art (you can see some in our pitch videos) we have received, so we’re not reading the future, we are seeing it too!
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$32,000 – Expanded anthology
We are getting more incredible submissions than we originally thought, and rather than having to pick and choose which moving and inspiring short stories and essays, we want to give them all to you!
- $40,000 AND BEYOND – Expanded 25+ city tour
For every $500 we raise, we’ll be able to add another city to the tour! So the sky’s the limit on how many places we can bring this project to!
What You Get
In exchange, we are offering some amazing gifts, from not only us the editors but from the writers and our community: exclusive songs by visionary hip hop artists Invincible and Gabriel Teodros only available here; an unreleased science fiction story by one of our amazing writers; hang outs with Octavia’s Brood editors or writers (realworld or virtual!), and more!
And everyone who contributes anything, even $1, will get a thank you in the book for being part of our visionary community, and creating the space for us to re-envision our movements and the world around us.
Other Ways You Can Help
There are 4 easy ways you can support Octavia’s Brood:
- Contribute to our campaign (and claim some of the great perks available!)
- Contribute airline miles for the tour and editors' meetings
- In-kind contributions for website support, promotional materials, app creation
- Spread the word!
We believe it is our right and our responsibility to dream new worlds, and then set about building them.
Origin Story
Walidah Imarisha is a writer, organizer, educator and performance poet. She is one half of the poetic duo Good Sista/Bad Sista. She has shared the stage with Angela Davis, Cornel West, Amiri Baraka, Nikki Giovanni, Kenny Muhammad of the Roots, Chuck D, Michael Franti and Spearhead, Umar bin Hassan from The Last Poets, Boots Riley, Saul Williams, Ani DiFranco, John Irving, dead prez and Kochiyama. Her work has appeared in dozens of publications, including the hip hop anthology Total Chaos. Walidah has facilitated poetry and journalism workshops third grade to twelfth, in schools, community centers, youth detention facilities, and women’s prisons. She directed and co-produced the Katrina documentary Finding Common Ground in New Orleans. She has taught in the Portland State University’s Black Studies Department, Oregon State University’s Women’s Studies Department and Southern New Hampshire University’s English Department.
Adrienne Maree Brown has been fanning the flame of Octavia Butler love through workshops and strategic readers for the past several years. She is approaching Octavia's work through the lens of emergent strategy - strategies rooted in relationship, adaptability, and embracing change. Adrienne started writing when she was 2, won her first essay contest in the 6th grade, and was blogging 5000 people before blogs existed. Writing is her first passion, and throughout an incredible journey of social justice and movement facilitation, her steady identity has been writer, penning words that are from the heart. She's written for Africana (now Black AOL), Wiretapmag.org, Alternet.org, HuffingtonPost.com, Feministing.com, Washingtonpost.com, Racewire.org, Left Turn; Race, Poverty and Ecology; and Yes. Now, Adrienne primarily and sometimes prolifically writes for her own blog - The Luscious Satyagraha, which has a readership of thousands - tracking her own personal and cultural transformation.
