I'm a serial creative, mixed-handed Sagittarius-Capricorn cusp person, born and raised by left-handed parents, leery of compute intelligence. I believe in the power of all forms of storytelling to help us understand the past in order to navigate a collective future. Out now: The Ephemera Collector, a novel. Available wherever you buy books or listen to audiobooks. Dive into the world of The Ephemera Collector below...
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A tenacious curator suffering from Long COVID is accused of a museum kidnapping in this epic Afrofuturist debut.
The Ephemera Collector is a love letter to my family – be them blood lineage or literary Ancestors. The story–within-the-story is an imagined near-future with a spotlight on loss, grief, health inequity, resilience, the promise of superintelligence and unintended consequences.
from People interview
The year is 2035, and Los Angeles County is awash in a tangelo haze of wildfire smoke. Xandria Anastasia Brown spends her days deep in the archives of the Huntington Library as the curator of African American Ephemera and associate curator of American Historical Manuscripts, supported by an array of AI personal assistants and health bots. Descended from a family of obsessive collectors who took part in the Great Migration, Xandria grew up immersed in African American ephemera and realia: boots worn by Negro Troopers during the Civil War, Black ATA tennis rackets, bandanas worn by the Crips….
Although Xandria’s work may preserve collective memory, she is losing a grasp on her own. Evren, her new health bot, won’t stop reminding her that her symptoms of long COVID are worsening; not to mention that severe asthma, chronic fatigue, grief, and worrying lapses in reality keep disrupting progress on a new Octavia E. Butler exhibition, cataloging the new Diwata Collection, and organizing the Huntington against a stealth corporate takeover. Then, one morning a colleague Xandria can’t place calls to wish her a happy birthday—and the library goes into an emergency lockdown.
Sequestered in the archive with only her adaptive technology and flickering intuition, Xandria fears that her life’s work is in danger—the Diwata Collection, a radical blueprint for humanity’s survival. Up against a faceless enemy and unsure of who her human or AI allies truly are, she must make a choice.
Ambitious . . . Jackson has arranged The Ephemera Collector as an archive in its own right, building a narrative out of fragments: transcripts, timelines, correspondence, images, documents . . . the radical heart of The Ephemera Collector [is] the notion that preservation matters.David L. Ulin, Alta.
An ambitious homage to Octavia Butler, this stunning near-future mosaic novel from debut author Jackson melds prose, poetry, memos, advertisements, and dream journal doodles… Jackson is an exciting new voice in Afrofuturism. Publishers Weekly starred review.
The scope of Jackson’s debut is breathtaking, from gripping suspense to serene contemplation to the scientific presentation of articles of history and imagination. Highly recommended for those who seek to understand the past and reimagine the future. Henry Bankhead, Library Journal, starred review.
The Ephemera Collector is page-turning, wildly creative, and smart as hell. This impressive debut novel reads in part like ‘if Octavia Butler lived through COVID,’ while also being something boldly original in its voice, vision, and genius. Remember the name Stacy Nathaniel Jackson—this is an author to watch. Mat Johnson, author of Invisible Things and Pym.
Both a masterful formal experiment and an exhilarating science fiction epic, The Ephemera Collector is a fractal of a novel—folding endlessly and effortlessly into itself in perfect synchronization with its parts: the journey of an archivist searching for meaning in the near future, a vision of humanity’s reckoning with its complex history and its ultimate fate, and a meditation on the complexity of memory, both human and cultural, that survives us in the objects left behind. Jinwoo Chong, author of Flux.
A transcendent map through the afropast, the afropresent and, of course, the afrofuture. I guarantee you’ve never read anything like it. Brilliant, bioluminescent work. Rion Amilcar Scott, author of The World Doesn’t Require You.
Reading The Ephemera Collector is like uncovering an archival box from the future! Stacy Nathaniel Jackson gives us the gift of Xandria Brown, a dedicated archivist with a unique perception of time, to weave a mind-bending and layered novel that takes us through the scorched earth of California, ocean civilizations, the cosmos, and even the inner lives of bots. Jackson’s powerful imagination blends technology, nature, and revolutionary vision to craft a blueprint for another world. Marytza K. Rubio, author of Maria, Maria.
A great novel. … The Ephemera Collector is as visual as it jolting. It is as scenic as it is glaring. It is both burden and sacrifice left at an altar. The work prompted me to close my eyes at moments in order to have solace with what was awaiting on the other side of the blk. Although this is a novel, there is clearly a poet conducting. Producing. Each sentence a brush swiped right, and right! Each turn a new choir. Warbling each page into its own new short time. avery r. young, author of neckbone: visual verses
A daring Afrofuturist debut that just scratches the surface of its own astonishing futures. Kirkus Reviews.
The book functions very much in the same way as an archival collection: both history and its documentation are made up of heterogenous elements and components that collectively form a narrative. The Ancillary Review of Books.
Something lovely happens when genres like horror and science fiction play with elements of historical fiction. Gabino Iglesias, Locus
