A field of stars with the continent of Africa made up of purple radio waves and a gold shiny line with the text: Griots and Galaxies: A podcast about African Futures and Storytelling

Griots & Galaxies is a ten episode series hosted by Jenna Hanchey, Chinelo Onwualu, and Yvette Lisa Ndlovu that explores African speculative fiction and imagining new futures for the continent.

Arizona State University’s Center for Science and the Imagination brings writers, artists and other creative thinkers into collaboration with scientists, engineers and technologists to reignite humanity’s grand ambitions for innovation and discovery.

The center serves as a network hub for audacious moonshot ideas and a cultural engine for thoughtful optimism. We provide a space for productive collaboration between the humanities and the sciences, bring human narratives to scientific questions, and explore the full social implications of cutting-edge research.

More about our many projects Meet our staff


Upcoming events


Download free books

An illustration of a globe with representations of solar energy, forests, factories, and other technologies.

A collection of short stories by writers from around the world, exploring the climate crisis and how human responses to it will shape the futures we will inhabit. Featuring winning stories from our 2020 Everything Change Climate Fiction Contest.

Get the book

A collection of science fiction stories, art, and essays exploring how the transition to solar energy will transform cities; catalyze revolutions in politics, governance, and culture; and create diverse futures for human communities. Our contributors imagine solar futures in four U.S. cities: Chicago, San Juan, Portland, and San Antonio.

Get the book

A collection of science fiction stories, art, and essays exploring human futures powered by solar energy, with an upbeat, solarpunk twist. What will it be like to live in the photon societies of tomorrow? How will a transition to clean, plentiful energy transform our values, markets, and politics?

Get the book

A collection of short stories by an international group of authors, drawn from our 2018 Everything Change Climate Fiction Contest, plus a foreword by our lead judge, Kim Stanley Robinson.

Get the book

In this novella, award-winning science fiction and fantasy author Elizabeth Bear and artist Melissa Gay imagine a near future informed by visceral VR simulations to catalyze positive change.

Get the book

Cover for Visions, Ventures, Escape Velocities: A collection of space Futures. Edited by Ed Finn and Joey Eschrich. Photo of the inside of a futuristic space station. A ship and planet can be seen outside the window.

Why should we go to space? Visions, Ventures, Escape Velocities takes on the challenge of imagining new stories at the intersection of public and private—narratives that use the economic and social history of exploration, as well as current technical and scientific research, to inform scenarios for the future of the "new space" era.

Get the book


Listen to the Imagination Desk podcast

Apple Podcasts Spotify RadioPublic Libsyn

In this episode of Griots & Galaxies, Jenna sits down with award-winning singer/songwriter and author Mohale Mashigo. In this conversation, Mohale shares her experiences in multimedia storytelling, and questions if aliens are truly as scary as Weste...

In this episode of Griots & Galaxies, Chinelo and Yvette sit down with critically-acclaimed author Tobi Ogundiran. In this conversation, Tobi takes us into horror and haunting, talking about how fairytales reveal what different societies fear–and lo...

In this conversation, Ayodele talks to us about African metaphysics and the importance of queer and gender-expansive characters to resisting colonization. 

In this conversation, Temi talks to us about neuroscience, corporate control, and how futures of AI technologies relate to histories of racism and colonialism.

In this conversation, Shingai talks to us about building community across the African diaspora, and challenges us to consider that taking African knowledges seriously means rethinking time itself.

In this special episode of Griots & Galaxies, Yvette interviews her cohost, editor and author Chinelo Onwualu. Chinelo shares with us her experiences as cofounder of Omenana and a forerunner in African speculative fiction...