The Afrofuturist Summer Book Series: Tahira Chloe Mahdi and Lawrence Brown

Dr. Lawrence Brown will join us to explore independent Black speculative fiction projects in our new summer series! He will talk with three authors about their novels, screenplays, and comic books that imaginatively explore Black futures and alter destinies. Their quirky and creative visions are situated in Baltimore and the DMV. Their works leap beyond our collective calamity to forge future flourishing.

The July edition will feature Tahira Chloe Mahdi, author of This Is Not How It Was Supposed to Go and Caught Out There: A Black Platonic Comedy Screenplay!

In the sexy, explosive adventures of This Is Not How It Was Supposed to Go, mothers who judge their daughters hide secrets of their own, and the past catches up to challenge what everyone believes about love and adulting. Meanwhile, in Caught Out There, Black-presenting aliens who call themselves "Notofearths" (as in, not of Earth) mix with humans at a Zodiac-based matchmaking service.

Come on over to the Ivy patio for a fun, inspiring dive into the surreal!

Order THIS IS NOT HOW IT WAS SUPPOSED TO GO here!

Order CAUGHT OUT THERE here!

Tahira Chloe Mahdi is an author, screenwriter, and community psychologist who has also been a media personality, video vixen, and college professor. She uses fiction to explore themes of naughty women, community, and belonging with the hilariously wild novel This Is Not How It Was Supposed to Go and the surrealist comedy Caught Out There, now streaming on Tubi with a screenplay available in bookstores. Getting her PhD was almost as cool as performing on the first all-woman go-go rap song “A Pocketful of Dymes," and having an actor portray her in the documentary TMOTTGoGo Inside the Pocket. She is claimed by family and community in Baltimore and P.G. County.

Lawrence T. Brown is a game designer, curator, scholar, and urban Afrofuturist. Dr. Brown is the author of The Black Butterfly: The Harmful Politics of Race and Space in America. He works as a research scientist in the Center for Urban Health Equity at Morgan State University. Additionally, he is the founder and director of the Black Butterfly Academy LLC, an educational consulting firm which creates hands-on learning tools and hosts Dream Lab workshops. The Academy partners with K-12 schools in Baltimore to install and display history exhibits. Dr. Brown created the board game Urban Cipher and the Black Butterfly Dream Lab Kit. Both help unpack how governments created urban apartheid by design. Overall, this body of work reveals how we can build an equitable cities and make Black neighborhoods matter.

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