For Immediate Release
June 8, 2008

SFWA member Nisi Shawl will read at the University Bookstore at 7 p.m., Tuesday, June 10, in celebration of the publication of her first book of short stories, Filter House.  A major force in the growing popularity of speculative fiction by people of color, Shawl will also answer questions about the connections between the fantastic genres and the African American experience. The book will be available for purchase, with a signing session following the reading.

Shawl's stories, which have appeared in The Year's Best Fantasy and Horror (edited by Ellen Datlow, Kelly Link, and Gavin Grant), Asimov's SF Magazine, and the Dark Matter anthologies, have been nominated for the Theodore Sturgeon, Gaylactic Spectrum, and Parallax awards. Her reviews and essays have appeared regularly in the Seattle Times since the turn of the millennium. She is the co-editor of Strange Matings: Octavia Butler, Science Fiction, and Feminism (forthcoming from Wesleyan University Press) and the co-author of Writing the Other, a guide to developing characters of varying racial, ethnic, and sexual backgrounds. She serves on the boards of the Clarion West Writers Workshop and the Carl Brandon Society and lives in Seattle.

Join us for an evening of discovery-and re-discovery-as Nisi Shawl draws you into worlds that are new, yet strangely familiar.

University Book Store
4326 University Way NE
Seattle, WA 98105-5809
(206) 634-3400

Advance Praise for Filter House

Ursula K. Le Guin writes: "From the exotic, baroque complexities of 'At the Huts of Ajala' to the stark, folktale purity of 'The Beads of Ku,' these fourteen superbly written stories will weave around you a ring of dark, dark magic."

Karen Joy Fowler declares, "Sometimes enigmatic, often surprising, always marvelous.  This lovely collection will take you, like a magic carpet, to some strange and wonderful places."

Matt Ruff, author of Set This House In Order and Bad Monkeys calls Filter House "A travelling story-bazaar, offering treasures and curios from diverse lands of wonder."

Eileen Gunn, author of Stable Strategies, concurs that these are "Remarkably involving stories that pull you along a path of wonder, word by word, in worlds where everything is a bit different."

And Tobias Buckell, author of Crystal Rain and Ragamuffin, says "Nisi Shawl uses the tools of future and fable, usually used to explore the other, the future, and the mysterious, to magically reveal what and who we all are here and today."