Chesya Burke

Chesya Burke is an African American author of speculative fiction, most notably horror and dark fantasy. Her first full-length short story collection, Let's Play White, was favorably reviewed in the Austin Post and Publishers Weekly: "If the urban realism doesn't always seem quite realistic, the depth of Burke's characters, the weight of their decisions, and their choices make this the very opposite of escapist fantasy." Poet Nikki Giovanni compared Burke's writing to that of Octavia Butler and Toni Morrison. A class of undergraduate English students at Michigan State University created a website analyzing the collection's themes through the lens of Black feminism, as embodied in the work of Patricia Hill Collins and Barbara Christian.