Amanda Fields and Tiffanie Drayton chat with Whitney French, author of Syncopation: A Novel in Verse, about memory, identity, and what it means to reshape yourself in a fractured world. In Syncopation: A Novel in Verse, in the aftermath of a Memory War, society is fragmented into new cultures, castes, and coalitions. Set against a backdrop of retrofitted food garages, microchip-sorting factories, and hyperloop terminals, this novel-in-verse emphasizes memory as the highest currency and love as dangerous, unruly, and singed with hope. The protagonists are O and Z, two young women searching for purpose in a world where a decades-long earthquake reverberates, and the population scrambles to hide from deadly acid rain. Descended from space pirates, O is drawn to the sky, while Z is earthbound, a skilled forager with connections to the black market. The two become travel companions and lovers, and are conflicted between choosing their values or each other. In this speculative novel, French offers readers an intricate future-world that resonates powerfully with our own, as it explores a people gripped in the war-torn politics of migration, memory-keeping, labor, and survival. Whitney French is a writer, educator, and publisher. She is the editor of the award-winning anthology Black Writers Matter (University of Regina Press, 2019) and Griot: Six Writers’ Sojourn into the Dark (Knopf Canada, 2022). Whitney is a Black futurist who explores memory, loss, technology, and nature in her work. She is a certified arts educator and an assistant professor in creative writing at the University of British Columbia. She is also the co-founder and publisher of Hush Harbour, the only Black queer feminist press in Canada. Socials & Links Website Instagram Hush Harbor Syncopation: A Novel in Verse https://linktr.ee/WhitneyFrenchWrites This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit literarymama.substack.com
