Black Arts: Stories

The very first story collection from the critically acclaimed, visionary author of the novels Lakewood, The Women Could Fly, and Meet Me at the Crossroads

Over three genre-busting novels, Megan Giddings has emerged as one of the most celebrated and inspiring authors at work today. She has been compared to such luminaries as Ursula K. LeGuin, Octavia Butler, and Jordan Peele, yet her voice is singular and distinctive.
Now, at long last, she presents us with a story collection that fully demonstrates the breadth and sophistication of her talent. Over the course of thirteen stories, we navigate complex family relationships, romances both troubled and charmed, and events that straddle the supernatural and the all-too-real. Among the disintegrating husbands, seductive ghosts, and artists communing with the supernatural to find their voices, Giddings establishes herself as a true investigator of modern yearning. Funny, poignant, exquisitely-rendered, and deeply moving, the stories in Black Arts further establish Megan Giddings as one of our most eagle-eyed and groundbreaking literary talents.

Megan Giddings is an assistant professor at the University of Minnesota. Her novel, Lakewood, was one of New York's 10 best books of 2020, one of NPR's best books of 2020, a Michigan Notable book for 2021, a nominee for two NAACP Image Awards, and a finalist for a 2020 Los Angeles Times Book Prize in The Ray Bradbury Prize for Science Fiction, Fantasy, and Speculative Fiction category. Her second novel, The Women Could Fly, was named one of The Washington Post's Best Science Fiction and Fantasy novels of 2022, one of Vulture's Best Fantasy books of 2022, and was a New York Times Editors' Choice. Her work has received support from the Barbara Deming Foundation and Hedgebrook. She lives in Minneapolis, Minnesota.