Stacy Nathaniel Jackson is a trans writer, poet, playwright, and visual artist originally from Los Angeles. His work has appeared in Callaloo, Electric Literature, Foglifter, The Gay and Lesbian Review, The Georgia Review and elsewhere. His debut novel The Ephemera Collector was published by Liveright in 2025. His Afrofuturist play The Codex of Narma was a semifinalist for the 2025 Eugene O’Neill National Playwrights Conference, and received a staged reading presented by the National Queer Theater. He currently resides in Washington, DC.
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The Ephemera Collector, a novel
A tenacious curator fights to save her beloved library and a new, groundbreaking archive in this epic Afrofuturist debut.
“But the Earth is falling (apart), not just the sky, but humans too. They are tuned out. Appear to have given up. Some are preparing to flee; some are preparing for war. Where I stand, I’m not quite sure.”
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A gripping saga. People.
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.
Excerpt from The Ephemera Collector
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Reviews & Endorsements
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. 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. 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.
Jackson’s powerful imagination blends technology, nature, and revolutionary vision to craft a blueprint for another world. Marytza K. Rubio, author of Maria, Maria.
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