“Judeah Reynolds is going to tell her own story. The story of what happened that day she walked to the store, and in the days that followed. The children’s book she’s writing with the help of the staff of Beaver’s Pond is set to publish in early 2021. ‘I’ve got a lot to express in my book. I can’t wait,’ Judeah said, sitting in her publisher’s bright, book-lined offices last week.” Absolutely heartbreaking. “Diaz identifies as Mojave, Akimel O’odham and Latinx, as well as queer. Her father was Mexican and her mother is Native, so she understands what it means to grow up across contested borders of racial and religious identity. ‘I had to be willing to risk myself for what I wanted. And I want desire; I want to be capable of it. I want to be deserving of it.’ Intriguingly, Diaz describes Postcolonial Love Poem as a kind of ‘bodywork’, a touch that extends from the body into the page but one that also decentres the human body. In this postcolonial state of perpetual war and institutional violence, Diaz’s poetry carves out a space where the nation state can’t intervene.” If you don’t already know Natalie Diaz, rectify that immediately. “In this time of great upheaval when we can feel paradigms shifting, it’s imperative that we open our minds to new ways of thinking and being to build a new world. Guidance for how to build that world is all around us, including — maybe even especially — in our science fiction and fantasy. In the words of adrienne maree brown, ‘All organizing is science fiction. We are bending the future, together, into something we have never experienced. A world where everyone experiences abundance, access, pleasure, human rights, dignity, freedom, transformative justice, peace.’” Books that may change your way of viewing the end of the world while it feels like the end of the world.
