The Black Vampire Renaissance: Blood, Rebellion & Reimagined Histories

Join Sistah Scifi for The Black Vampire Renaissance: Blood, Rebellion & Reimagined Histories, which will feature , moderated by , and will celebrate Redmond’s Blood Saga novels, and .

Black vampires have long represented more than immortality and supernatural power. Across books, film, television, and popular culture, Black creators have used the vampire to explore freedom, resistance, desire, identity, cultural memory, and the fight to survive.

Markus Redmond’s Blood Saga brings a bold new perspective to that tradition. Beginning with Blood Slaves and continuing in Blood Rising, the series reimagines vampire origins through an ancient African vampire tribe and follows formerly enslaved Africans who harness supernatural power in their fight for freedom.

Through the lens of Markus’s work and the larger history of Black vampires, this conversation will explore the characters and stories we love—from iconic representations of Black vampires on screen to new generations of authors and creators transforming vampire mythology today.

The conversation will consider questions including:

• What makes the Black vampire different from the traditional European vampire?
• Why are vampires such a compelling vehicle for stories about race, power, freedom, and resistance?
• How have Black creators reclaimed and transformed vampire mythology?
• What can vampire stories tell us about slavery, colonialism, liberation, sexuality, and belonging?
• Why does the Black vampire continue to resonate across literature, film, television, and other media?

Expect a lively conversation about blood, rebellion, Black history, liberation, storytelling, and the Black vampires we love.
About Markus Redmond

Markus Redmond is an actor, director, screenwriter, and author. Known for his roles on Doogie Howser, MD, NYPD Blue, M**der One, Mad About You, Angel, and Fight Club, he wrote and starred alongside Whoopi Goldberg and Sharon Stone in the indie film If I Had Known I Was a Genius. He wrote, directed, and starred in the Amazon Prime thriller The 6th Degree, and has multiple screenplays in development. He lives in Los Angeles. Read more here.
About Sumiko Saulson

Sumiko Saulson is the BayCon/Westercon 2026 Poet Laureate, a Two-Time Bram Stoker Award® for Poetry for The Rat King (2022, Dooky Zines) and Melancholia (2024, Bludgeoned Girls Press). Four-Time Elgin Speculative Poetry Award nominee for these and Doodooality: Shots fired from Uranus (Dooky Zines), and novelist whose short stories, poetry and articles have appeared in over 50 publications, including Weird Tales, Locus Magazine, Strange Horizons, Nightmerica: Corruptions of an American Dream, and This Way Lies Madness. Winner of the Afrosurrealist Writers Award. Their latest novel, Somnalia: The Metamorphoses of Flynn Keahi (sequel to Happiness and Other Diseases) is available on Mocha Memoirs Press. Find them at @sumikoska or www.SumikoSaulson.com.

About Oakstop17
Oakstop is a social enterprise that uses commercial real estate as a platform for economic development and community empowerment by providing workspace, meeting/event space, and creative space to entrepreneurs and communities of color. Read more here.
About Sistah Scifi
Started in 2019 by Isis Asare, Sistah Scifi is the first Black-owned bookstore focused on science fiction and fantasy in the United States, as validated by the American Booksellers Association, and has a community of nearly 65K points of contact with engaged readers across the country. The bookstore has been featured in The Seattle Times, KQED, Oprah Magazine, Buzzfeed, USA Today, KTVU, The New York Times, South Seattle Emerald and many more.

Sistah Scifi's mission is to double the number of Black and Indigenous Speculative Fiction authors on the New York Times bestseller list by 2030. Read more here.

Check out Sistah Scifi's bookshop.org page if titles are out of stock at sistahscifi.com
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