TOD A08 Chesya Burke: Strange Crimes and Dangerous Women

March 16, 2017
8 mins to read

In this archival podcast Scott Nicolay interviews Chesya Burke, author of The Strange Crimes of Little Africa. It originally aired on August 17, 2015. This broadcast includes bonus new content featuring a follow-up interview with Chesya and Nicole Givens Kurtz reviews The Strange Crimes of Little Africa. Then Associate Producer Anya Martin joins Scott for an all-new News from the Weird and an exclusive preview of The Outer Dark Symposium on the Greater Weird on March 25 in Atlanta, GA. Purchase attending and supporting memberships through March 19 at our Indiegogo campaign. After that, check the Facebook event page to see if memberships are still available.

Welcome to our new show sponsor, Rabbits Docudrama Podcast (0:0:30 and 2:14:55)!

Show Notes

(0:01:37) Chesya Burke delves deeply into the stories from her first collection Let’s Play White and her novel The Strange Crimes of Little Africa (then forthcoming from Rothco Press), a mystery set in the dynamic cultural milieu of Harlem Renaissance which features Zora Neale Hurston as a character. The conversation also includes intersectional feminism in the African-American context with strong female protagonists and supernatural powers as a force of empowerment, growing up with ghost stories in Hopkinsville, Kentucky, and reclaiming cultural traditions, open endings and returning characters, why she still loves zombies, reading and enjoying H.P. Lovecraft’s works but not flinching from the critical context of his racism, her doctorate studies in English, diversity and the future of speculative fiction, and her reading recommendations including Kiese Laymon and N.K. Jemisin.

Bonus New Content: Chesya Burke Returns, Nicole Givens Kurtz Reviews The Strange Crimes of Little Africa, News From The Weird and a Preview of The Outer Dark Symposium March 25 in Atlanta

(1:01:58) In an exclusive new segment, Chesya Burke returns to talk about The Strange Crimes of Little Africa just over a year after its December 2015 publication including her challenges in writing Zora Neale Hurston as a character, her protagonist Jaz Idawell, the reception the novel has received, sequel plans, loose ends, mob boss Madam St. Clair who appears both in Strange Crimes and her story ‘I Make People Do Bad Things’, her noir intentions and black detective fiction, Get Out, the experience of African Americans as fertile ground for both the horror and noir genres, the recent James Baldwin documentary I Am Not Your Negro, future projects, graduate school, black girl magic and a few more reading recommendations including Nnedi Okorafor, Maurice Broaddus, Zora Neale Hurston’s autobiography Dust Tracks on the Road and James Baldwin.

(1:40:05) Nicole Givens Kurtz reviews The Strange Crimes of Little Africa.

(1:54:54) Associate Producer Anya Martin joins Scott for an all-new News from the Weird featuring Dim Shores, Christopher Slatsky, Philip Fracassi, Mark Bode’s Indiegogo campaign for a Cobalt 60 3D Cartoon, and more.

(2:01:43) Plus an exclusive preview of The Outer Dark Symposium on the Greater Weird on March 25 in Atlanta, GA. Since the broadcast, three more sponsors have come on board—Broken Eye Books, Lethe Press, and Kino Lorber. Purchase attending and supporting memberships through March 19 at our Indiegogo campaign. After that, check the Facebook event page to see if memberships are still available.