A transformative in-person event blending the power of Black horror with cultural exploration and collective healing. Featuring a keynote by acclaimed author Tananarive Due and panels with renowned writers and scholars like Jewelle Gomez, John Jennings, and Dr. Kinitra Brooks, this gathering delves into Black horror’s historical contexts and its potential as a tool for healing. 

Attendees can connect with each other through engaging activities and a community marketplace, all grounded in cultural traditions such as oral storytelling and neo-traditional call-and-response. This event offers an inspiring space for horror enthusiasts and those seeking deeper understanding of the Black Diaspora’s narratives and social justice.  

Program Schedule 

12:30 PM - 1:30 PM: Registration and Welcome (Doors open at 1 p.m.)

1:30 PM - 2:30 PM: Opening Keynote – The Power of Black Horror and Healing through Storytelling 

Author and film historian Tananarive Due (The Reformatory, The Wishing Pool and Other Stories) explores the history and impact of Black horror in literature and film and discusses how it serves as a medium for healing and empowerment.

2:45 PM - 3:45 PM:  Shadows of the Past: Historical Contexts of Black Horror 

Take a deep dive into the historical contexts that have shaped Black horror in this examination of how these narratives reflect societal fears and injustices. Featuring Tananarive Due, Jewelle Gomez (The Gilda Stories and We Three), LaDarrion Williams (Blood at the Root), Hayley Dennings (This Ravenous Fate) and Dr. Kinitra Brooks. Moderated by Isis Asare.

4:00 PM - 5:00 PM: Healing Through Horror: Future Directions 

A forward-looking discussion of the future of Black horror and its role in healing communities. Featuring, Michele Tracy Berger (Doll Seed: Stories), John Jennings (Parable of the Sower: A Graphic Novel Adaption), Tamika Thompson (Unshod Naked and Crackling), and Dr. Justin C. Keys (The World Wasn’t Ready for You). Moderated by Isis Asare.

5PM to 545PM: Networking & Marketplace

Visit the Marketplace in the Latino/Hispanic Meeting Room from from 12:30 – 5 p.m.

Masking encouraged.

A partnership between Sistah Scifi and the African American Center of the San Francisco Public Library. 

Participant Bios

Tananarive Due  (tah-nah-nah-REEVE doo) is an award-winning author and leading voice in Black speculative fiction for more than 20 years, who teaches Black Horror and Afrofuturism at UCLA. She is an executive producer on Shudder's groundbreaking documentary Horror Noire: A History of Black Horror. She and her husband/collaborator, Steven Barnes, wrote "A Small Town" for Season 2 of Jordan Peele’s "The Twilight Zone" on Paramount Plus, and an upcoming Black Horror graphic novel The Keeper, illustrated by Marco Finnegan. Due and Barnes co-host a podcast, "Lifewriting: Write for Your Life!" Due has won an American Book Award, an NAACP Image Award, and a British Fantasy Award. Her books include Ghost Summer: Stories, My Soul to Keep and The Good House. She and with her late mother, civil rights activist Patricia Stephens Due, co-authored Freedom in the Family: A Mother-Daughter Memoir of the Fight for Civil Rights. She and her husband live with their son, Jason.

Jewelle Gomez is an American author, poet, critic and playwright. She lived in New York City for 22 years, working in public television, theater, as well as philanthropy, before relocating to the West Coast. Her writing—fiction, poetry, essays and cultural criticism—has appeared in a wide variety of outlets, both feminist and mainstream. Her books include Still Water, The Gilda Stories and Forty-three Septembers. Her work centers on women's experiences, particularly those of LGBTQ women of color. She has been interviewed for several documentaries focused on LGBT rights and culture.

LaDarrion Williams hails from the small town of Helena, Alabama. Williams is a self-taught playwright, filmmaker, author and screenwriter committed to shaping a new era of Black fantasy. An esteemed alum of the Eugene O’Neill National Playwrights Conference, Williams' play Coco Queens was featured in the 2019 Sundance Institute’s Playwriting Intensive, won the NewWorks@TheWorks Playwriting Award and celebrated its world premiere at Playhouse on the Square in July 2024. His Jeff Award-nominated play Boulevard of Bold Dreams — a poignant exploration of Hattie McDaniel’s historic Oscar win—debuted at the TimeLine Theatre Company in Chicago and played in Boston and Florida. In addition to his theatrical achievements, Williams has directed three short films and is a debut author of Blood at the Root, a Young Adult novel that is a New York Times and USA Today bestseller.

Hayley Dennings grew up in the Bay Area, where she spent most of her time writing and reading in between being a three-sport athlete. Her love of words and championing queer Black voices led her to getting a BA in English and French from Loyola Marymount University with a concentration in diversity and inclusion. Her first novel, This Ravenous Fate, became an instant New York Times and Indie bestseller. She currently resides in Oakland and works in tech. When she’s not working, she can be found obsessing over her favorite animated movies and tv shows, spending time with her dogs, or baking.

Dr. Kinitra Brooks is the Audrey and John Leslie Endowed Chair in Literary Studies in the Department of English at Michigan State University and the Director of Graduate Programs in English. Dr. Brooks specializes in the study of black women, genre fiction, and popular culture as seen in past columns for The Root on “The Safe Negro Guide to Lovecraft Country” and her multiple visits as a commentator on NPR’s podcast 1A. As a pop educator and scholar, Dr. Brooks uses horror to study the depictions of marginalized groups and portrayals of the Conjure Woman in horror and science fiction. Her expertise is part of the 2023 documentary Afrofantastic:The Transformative World of Afrofuturism featured on Public Broadcasting Service stations and the online PBS streaming app. Brooks co-edited The Lemonade Reader (Routledge 2019), an interdisciplinary collection that explores the nuances of Beyoncé’s 2016 audiovisual project, Lemonade. Her two other books are Searching for Sycorax: Black Women’s Hauntings of Contemporary Horror, a critical treatment of black women in science fiction, fantasy, and horror and Sycorax’s Daughters, an edited volume of short horror fiction written by black women. 

Michele Tracy Berger is the Eric and Jane Nord Family Professor in the Department of Religious Studies and director of the Baker-Nord Center for the Humanities at Case Western Reserve University. She has a secondary appointment in the Department of English. Her short fiction, poetry and creative nonfiction have appeared in various publications including 100 Word Story, Apex Magazine, Glint Literary Journal, Carolina Woman and Ms. as well as various anthologies. She is the 2019 winner of the Carl Brandon Kindred Award for her story "Doll Seed" published in FIYAH: Magazine of Black Speculative Fiction. Her short story collection, Doll Seed was published in 2024. Much of her work explores psychological horror, especially through issues of race and gender.

John Jennings is a Professor of Media and Cultural Studies at the University of California at Riverside. He is co-editor of the Eisner Award-winning collection The Blacker the Ink: Constructions of the Black Identity in Comics and Sequential Art. Jennings is also a 2016 Nasir Jones Hip Hop Studies Fellow with the Hutchins Center at Harvard University. His current projects include the horror anthology Box of Bones, the coffee table book Black Comix Returns (with Damian Duffy), and the Eisner-winning, Bram Stoker Award-winning, New York Times best-selling graphic novel adaptation of Octavia Butler's classic dark fantasy novel Kindred. Jennings is also founder and curator of the ABRAMS Megascope line of graphic novels. 

Tamika Thompson is a writer, producer and journalist. She is author of Unshod, Cackling, and Naked (Unnerving Books), which is the 2024 Next Generation Indie Book Awards WINNER for Horror, and which Publishers Weekly calls “powerful,” “unsettling,” and “terrifying,” as well as author of Salamander Justice (Madness Heart Press). She is co-creator of the artist collective POC United and fiction editor for the group’s Foreword INDIES Award-winning anthology, Graffiti. Her work has appeared in several speculative fiction anthologies as well as in Interzone, Prairie Schooner, The New York Times, and Los Angeles Review of Books, among others. Her long fiction tale, "Bridget Has Disappeared," is in translation at Independent Legions’ Italian-language Molotov Magazine, her story, “The Sand Ate Her,” is available in audio format at the Creepy Podcast, and her tale, “The God Bot,” is forthcoming in Penumbric. She has attended the VONA/Voices Writing Workshop and the Community of Writers. She also has producing credits at Clear Channel Media and Entertainment, as well as at NBC and ABC News. She received a Bachelor of Arts in Political Science from Columbia University and a Master of Arts in Journalism from the University of Southern California. She lives in the San Francisco Bay Area.

Dr. Justin C. Key wanted to write for as long as he can remember. He blended his passions for science and writing by penning short stories in middle school and sat down to draw up his first novel while studying Biology at Stanford University. He’s been writing ever since. His short stories have appeared in The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, Crossed Genres, and KYSO Flash, as well as in the revolutionary children’s iPad application, FarFaria. He held a writing advice blog for several years at Scribophile.com and worked as a professional health blogger and content editor at WellnessFX while applying to medical school. Justin’s medical training richly informs his writing, and the power of story and narrative allows him to connect with patients on a deeper level. Dr. Key lives in Los Angeles with his wonderful wife, two sons, and daughter. Even as a full-time psychiatrist, he finds ample time to write. Just don’t ask him how he does it; he wouldn’t be able to tell you.

Isis Asare earned a degree in psychology from Stanford University. She then lived in Ghana, where her parents are from, as part of the Peace Corps. Her subsequent life chapters were filled with graduate degrees from Columbia Business School and Harvard University, a career in tech at companies such as Microsoft, Shutterfly, and Brightroll, and starting a film entertainment site for queer women of color named Sistah Sinema which Asare sold for 2x revenue in 2010. In 2019, Isis Asare started Sistah Scifi, the first Black owned bookstore focused on science fiction and fantasy. Located primarily in cyberspace, Sistah Scifi launched three Sistah Scifi Book Vending Machine in 2023. In 2024, Isis Asare selected as the first African American executive director of Aunt Lute Books, a San Francisco based, non-profit feminist press.