Afrofuturism | The New Engagement

Afrofuturism

By Brian Alessandro
Afro Futurism by Brian Alessandro
Click images to enlarge

Brian Alessandro
Afrofuturism
Colored pencil, ink
11 ½ inches x 14 inches
2001/ 2013

Brian Alessandro

Brian Alessandro writes literary criticism for Newsday and is a contributor at Interview Magazine. Most recently, he has adapted Edmund White’s 1982-classic A Boy’s Own Story into a graphic novel for Top Shelf Productions, which won the National Book Award in 2016 for March. His short fiction and essays have been published in Roxanne Gay’s literary journal, PANK, as well as in Crashing Cathedrals, an anthology of essays about the work of Edmund White. In 2011, he wrote and directed the feature film, Afghan Hound, which has streamed on Amazon and Netflix. In 2016, he founded and continues to edit The New Engagement, a literary journal that has released two print issues and eighteen online issues. His debut novel, The Unmentionable Mann, was published in 2015 and was well received by Huffington Post, The Leaf, Examiner, and excerpted in Bloom. He has been nominated for the Pushcart Prize twice and the Independent Book Publisher Association Best New Voice Award. He holds an MA in clinical psychology from Columbia University and has taught the subject at the high school and college levels for over ten years. Brian currently works in the mental health field.

 

Follow Us

"You think your pain and your heartbreak are unprecedented in the history of the world, but then you read. It was books that taught me that the things that tormented me most were the very things that connected me with all the people who were alive, or who had ever been alive."
~ James Baldwin

Help us spread the ethos of compassion and understanding by joining our social media networks and sharing generously!

Recent Literature

Fiction, Poetry, Essays, Drama

As An Act of Protest
"As an Act of Protest" Exposes the Frauds, Hypocrites, and Cowards

“As an Act of Protest” has never been more urgent than now.

Wonderland, A Collection

The Bulldog, the Cyclone, the Ocelot, and Tom. With dignity and mettle for all.

The Arrested Evolution of William S. Burroughs

A reluctant “outlaw” too radical for the queer canon.

Dr. Strangetimes or: How We Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Virus

Hubris is infectious.

The Writer

Subjects include dependency and exploitation.

Futures in Gold

A pagan penance in paradise.

Illusion of Upward Mobility

The subaltern readies her defense.

The Wanting Was a Wilderness

All the natural things that pull.

There’s Something About (Intergenerational) Trauma

Centuries of cruelty demand centuries of reparation.

La Dona Remedia

Deviations from dark destinies.

Hanging in The Balance

Grace is a dance in the face of adversity, a pirouette across a landscape of bigotry.

The End of Imagination

Morality is a creative endeavor.

Grass Waving Under Wind, A Collection

The salt of the Earth exerts the greatest pressures.

The Abortion Debate

Discussion, dissection.

Ten Vignettes About Love accompanying art
Ten Vignettes About Love

Coupledom is the loneliest state.

Decade and Grown story art
Decade and Grown

Rented and reconstituted.

The Three Year Swim story art
The Three-Year Swim

Treading water, staying afloat.

Lost Reception story art
Lost Reception

Dial M for Metaphysics.

Leave story art
Leave

Fathers, sons, and the toxic masculine.

My Tattoos story art
My Tattoos

Idolatry is more than skin deep.

Rubbish Blooms story art
Three Poems

Lost objects, found directions.

The Way In The Way Out story art
The Way In...The Way Out

Violently, lovingly, evade.

Jaywalking / The Sleeper story art
Jaywalking / The Sleeper

The body politic, awake and ready to move.

The Reasons story art
The Reasons

Weathered but undergirded.

My Voice Is a Foreign Land

A sublime horror, a beautiful exploitation—sung to mellifluous perfection.

Spin Cycle Dizzies Generations, Trauma Tongue Ties the Masses

Dismantled binaries, reclaimed thoughts, decolonized language.

My Orchie

Confirmations.

Marie and Phillip: a double sestina

Sacred patronage, grateful salvation.

Malevolence And A Museum

Legacies, embattled and embalmed.

Ishtar in Hell

Exiting hell, burdened with clarity.

The New Engagement

The New Engagement endeavors a novel approach to discovering, introducing, and showcasing writers, artists, and filmmakers, by providing them digital and print platforms, while encouraging and supporting their social-consciousness.