this weekend has been incredible – octavia’s brood got to read excerpts at the opening ceremony of the allied media conference, and offer a behind the scenes look at our process. and i got to launch three different pieces of work that have been growing for various lengths of time in, around and through the sci-fi, speculative fiction, social justice and emergent strategy frameworks.

first, you can now read original science fiction from detroiters that emerged from the series of writing salons hosted at my home this past year. the work is up at the detroit sci-fi generator site, with the work of each salon gathered into a chapter. the pieces are short, experimental, and show the brilliance of this city, and of the work of collaborative ideation – developing ideas and work together. my hope is that there will be more salons and more work posted in an ongoing way.

the second tool is the emergent strategy handbook, which will be distributed today at an emergent strategy train the trainers. the content is various articles and reflections on emergent strategy from the past few years, the lay-out and design is by the incredible rachel plattus of the new economy coalition. my heart fluttered at her gorgeous handwriting during the gathering in kentucky where we met, and now her handwriting, art, mindmaps and design are the container for this tool. i will post the digital copy next week for download for those who aren’t in detroit this weekend.

the third is a project that popped up very recently. for years i have working with octavia butler’s earthseed verses from the parable of the sower and the parable of the talents. then sister doctor alexis pauline gumbs did a black feminist breathing chorus 21-day meditation practice and a light went off – why not create an accessible meditative tool around octavia’s work? i put out a call for reflections and lots of brilliant people responded with meditations, wisdom, stories, poetry. it is gathered into this little book, reflections on octavia butler’s earthseed that i imagine sitting on altars, in bathrooms, being used for local reflection groups to guide reflection and conversation. octavia’s 67th birthday is tomorrow – let’s honor her by engaging earthseed.