RAS MASHRAMANI: Oh, yeah, neighbors. They said “how the fuck are you going to have a Philadelphia science fiction thing and not include Afrofuturist Affair or the Black Tribbles? You should have invited these people.” So Rasheedah got on the panel and we went that night, and it was just — first of all, they had her there to be talking about diversity, instead of talking about her— She has quantum theories of narrative and physics and things. She’s actually a science fiction nerd, not just a black girl who likes to say she writes science fiction. So they were trying to make her talk about diversity, and talking about it as though it was a trend.
We didn’t finish talking about like how we started, though. We intended to come together to do an anthology of Philadelphia science fiction of people’s submissions.
We wanted people who worked. Regular workers, like moms and dads and social workers and kids. We just wanted random people from Philadelphia, who live in Philadelphia, not people who went to MFAs and got a creative writing degree. Regular people who wrote, who had stories. We ended up widening the scope and moving away from that, and we ended up making zines instead.
- assassinating infinity: an interview with metropolarity by marcella faustini