"Compelling scientific and emotional explorations that raise the question: What awaits us when we cross the line?"
—Kirkus Reviews
A squatting tenant in El Barrio refusing his landlord’s eviction offer while his nurse contemplates taking a nefarious offer of her own. Star jumping to the next constellation without the girl you love. Stopping a quantum mechanical fungoid Casanova who is ravaging the galaxy’s hearts and star maps.
Whether it be courage, resignation or lust that lead to a decision, one thing is certain: don’t buckle up because seatbelts don’t work here.
From the 2022 Chautauqua Janus Prize winner Stephanie Nina Pitsirilos comes a sci-fi, sensual, and literary debut short story collection and like her prize-winning story, “Jean”, genre and medium are not holding her back. Event Horizon: Stories of No Turning Back is a prose-driven collection of stories themed around the astrophysical phenomenon of black holes and their unforgiving boundaries of “no return”—their event horizons. What arises is a tantalizing question for characters grappling with cosmic decisions in their lives, whether in their living rooms, on space stations or exoplanets: what awaits on the other side of the “event horizon”? An array of celebrated artists help answer this through the sequential art of comics, canvas work, and photography. The collection is introduced by comics, prose and astrophysics academia: Dr. Frederick Luis Aldama (Professor Latinx), the Jacob & Frances Sanger Mossiker Chair in the Humanities in the English Department at the University of Texas, Austin; Professor of Astronomy at Columbia University Dr. Marcel Agüeros; and Dr. Mariana Espinosa Aldama, Member of the Mathematical Modeling of Social Systems Department at the Research Institute on Applied Mathematics and Systems at UNAM. 6 prose stories with art. 3 short comics. 1 one-shot comic (25pages). 3academic letters of introduction. Original canvas work. Original photography throughout.
“...Pitsirilos has assembled an eclectic roster of creators from many different mediums, resulting in a work that is diverse in both forms and perspectives… All should prove a delight for SF aficionados.” –Kirkus Reviews
"...By having the courage to place Latinx feminist issues in space and in futuristic settings, Pitsirilos has lifted Latinx literature from the flat earth most of our fiction is set." –Ernesto Quiñonez, Author of Bodega Dreams
“Event Horizon’s stunning kaleidoscopic and alchemical admixtures of image and word build story worlds that radically opens our mind-bodies to a future not weighed heavy by failures of the past but rather that guide us toward thrivance in our collective dreaming of Latinx futurities.” –Frederick Luis Aldama
This book is like you being characters in THE EXPANSE reading bell hooks while sipping a drink at a bar in an asteroid belt with Neil DeGrasse Tyson next to you pointing out some intergalactic sh*t going down in the constellation next door, while your mom is calling you cosmic-collect to remind you of the reality of your messy life back on Earth as you feel the woman on the other side of you slowly running her crystal stiletto heel up your leg.
Subject Interests: Literary Fiction, Science Fiction, Speculative Fiction, Latinxfuturism, Latino Literature, Women’s Fiction, Nuyorico, Puerto Rico, Greece, Space, Black Holes, event horizons, astrophysics, astronomy, Short Stories, photography, style writing, graffiti, abstract art, comics, human sexuality, love stories, romance.
STEPHANIE NINA PITSIRILOS is a writer with critically acclaimed work in numerous anthologies, magazines, co-creator platforms, and artists’ book form. She is the recipient of the 2022 Chautauqua Janus Prize for her story “Jean,” called “masterful” by Publishers Weekly. She’s recognized as a new voice transforming the genres of science fiction and fantasy and revitalizing the short comic form.
ARTISTS: BlusterOne; Cyrus Amir Boquín; Karen S. Darboe; Cris Delara; Gabriela Downie; Aaron Guzman; Galen Ihlenfeldt; Kroniko; Rafael Romeo Magat; Seth Christian Martel; Eric Nguyen; Anton Oxenuk; Armando Ramirez; Tracy168.
Book Design by Aaron Guzman
The books are designed after a black hole. They feature full art from cover to back (because images crossing over an event horizon appear frozen in time to an observer (you, the reader). The only information you’ll find on the back cover is a barcode (that’s Hawking Radiation; the tiny information that “emits” out). Book blurbs are tucked inside the book on endpapers (just past the event horizon).
Cover Art by Karen S. Darboe of Magnus Arts
Our main Karen S. Darboe cover is hardcover with foil stamping accentuating the body outline and inner world, hand energy burst and body grid of Alita, in glowing matte yellow.
Images shown of the physical book are mock-ups and may slightly vary.
januspointpress.com/eventhorizon
