A Lucid Fiction Program of Kelly Writers House
Join Kelly Writers House for an evening with speculative fiction writers Elwin Cotman (Dance on Saturday, Weird Black Girls), Alex Smith (Arkdust, Black Vans), and Margaret Killjoy (The Sapling Cage, We Won't Be Here Tomorrow). Each author will share their work and join in conversation on the role of the literature of the imagination—fantasy, science fiction, Afrofuturism, magical realism—in speaking urgent truths and holding up a mirror to society. As Ursula Le Guin said, "I think hard times are coming when we will be wanting the voices of writers who can see alternatives to how we live now—the realists of a larger reality." The evening is hosted by Abbey Mei Otis, Penn Artist-in-Residence and author of Alien Virus Love Disaster.
More information: https://writing.upenn.edu/wh/calendar/0426.php#15
Elwin Cotman is a storyteller from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. He is the author of four speculative story collections and one poetry collection. He has worked as a video game writer and consultant for Square Enix. He is a winner of the 2025 Whiting Award in Fiction. His debut novel, The Age of Ignorance, is scheduled for publication in 2027.
Margaret Killjoy is a transfeminine author, podcaster, and musician. She is the host of the radical history podcast Cool People Who Did Cool Stuff, the lead songwriter for the feminist black metal band Feminazgûl, and the author of numerous books, including the Danielle Cain series and The Sapling Cage, the latter of which was shortlisted for the 2025 Ursula Le Guin Prize for Fiction. She spends most of her time in Appalachia, hanging out with her dog.
Abbey Mei Otis is a writer, a teaching artist, a storyteller, and a firestarter, raised in the woods of North Carolina. She loves people and art forms on the margins. Her story collection, Alien Virus Love Disaster (Small Beer Press), was named one of the best science fiction books of the year by the Washington Post, and was a finalist for the 2018 Philip K Dick Award. She has received fellowships and residencies from MacDowell, Tin House, Millay Arts, the Vermont Studio Center, Hedgebrook, and the McKnight Foundation. She studied creative writing at the Michener Center for Writers, Oberlin College, and the Clarion West Writers Workshop. At Penn she is an Artist-in-Residence and is working on her first novel.
Alex Smith is a speculative fiction writer, collage artist, and vocalist, keyboardist, and lyricist in avant-garde punk band Rainbow Crimes and Solarized. He draws from influences like science fiction, Dadaism, and comic art, bending their conventions to frame the creativity, survival, and hopefulness of queer and Black people. He curates two recurring series: a queer sci-fi reading series titled Laser Life, which he also founded, and what Smith describes as a "retro-futurist electro mash-up art-jam," Chrome City. Smith has lectured and held workshops on the practical application of Afrofuturism and sci-fi and fantasy tropes in art at Moogfest, Moore College of Art & Design, the Tyler School of Art and Architecture at Temple University, Vox Populi, and Swarthmore College.
Cosponsored by the Beltran Family Award, Truth and Disinformation in the Writing Arts, and Wolf Humanities Center.
