Season 5: P. Djèlí Clark

Phenderson Djèlí Clark's books take readers into places in history that feel familiar, but have spun off of the timeline we exist on. In Ring Shout we meet a militia fighting in Georgia against the Ku Klux Klan, which has invited actual demons into its hooded ranks with the help of the magical cinema of D. W. Griffith. But he's also written about a steampunk version of early 20th century Cairo in the Dead Djinn Universe and an alternate history of New Orleans during the US Civil War in The Black God's Drums. We spoke with him about writing (and overwriting), his mythologically-rich upbringing, and how he (an academic historian in his day job) picks points in history to tweak in his novels and novellas.

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