[Table of Contents]

 

Preface                                                                                                      vi

Novella Brooks de Vita and Cat Ashton

 

Introduction:  A Water Scarcity

Awareness and Alleviation Anthology                                                 8

Alexis Brooks de Vita

 

Source                                                                                                       13

Oghenechovwe Donald Ekpeki

 

Doomed to the Storm                                                                             16

Mame Bougouma Diene

 

Stone Bridge and Laughter                                                                    43

Alex Jennings

 

GodIsLove: Signified Sankofarrations, Personified Deities, and Mythatypical Patterns in The Joys of Motherhood and

Freshwater                                                                                              47

Candice Thornton

 

Emerging                                                                                                 55

Joyce Chng

 

A Pocketful of Precious                                                                          57

Annette Meserve

 

Whose Water Is It, Anyway?                                                                  63

Eileen Gunn

 

Bayelsa, Water for All                                                                             67

Solomon Uhiara

                          

Miriam After the Flood                                                                         78

F. Brett Cox

 

The Revenge of Yemoja                                                                          86

Wuraola Kayode

 

Water Guzzlers and Time Wasters                                                      101

Gillian Polack

 

Quizani and the Eagle/Quizani y el Águila (English/Spanish)       107

Alfonso Arteaga Rodríguez/Alfonso Arteaga

 

The Ship of Sisyphus                                                                              114

James Morrow

 

Ocean Scourge                                                                                         137

A.E. Fonsworth

 

Inmates of Ikenga Point                                                                         139

Uchechukwu Nwaka

 

Fanon and Soyinka on Traditional African Ecoharmony,

Colonial Greed, and the Mystic Functionality of Water                    152

Mingle Moore, Jr.                                                                                                       

The Turning Part                                                                                    162

Virgília Ferrão

 

Laundry                                                                                                    167

Regina M. Hansen

 

le mot, la mort                                                                                         175

Albert Uriah Turner, Jr.

 

 

Stalwart                                                                                                    179

MultiMind

 

Finding Water to Fish with Friends and Family: Daybreak             198

James H. Ford, Jr.

 

Water Is Life, Water Is Death, There Is No Truth or Joy

Without Water                                                                                        205

Mary A. Turzillo

 

Love, Temptation and the Downfall of a Water Rig in Kai

Ashante Wilson’s “The Devil in America”                                           221

Desireé Y. Amboree

 

The Weird Sisters of Onapatu Bog                                                      231

Ceschino

 

Water for Tears                                                                                        254

Lakunle Whesu

 

A Dry Death                                                                                             263

Vuyokazi Ngemntu

Biographies                                                                                              264

 

[Preface]

THE CREATIVE AND SCHOLARLY CONTRIBUTIONS in this anthology immerse the reader in water awareness. Authors have contributed their thoughts and dreams about water: its availability and scarcity, its precariousness and its resilience, its generous ability to heal and its fragile inability to wash away inhumanity or greed. Immersion in this anthology inspires each of us to see ourselves, both individually in our aloneness and collectively as a water activist community, as the solutions we can be to solve the multiplicity of problems stemming from clean water scarcity, worldwide.

From the time that Joshua Keghnen Ichor and Oghenechovwe Donald Ekpeki approached the Editors-in-Chief of the Journal of the Fantastic in the Arts with a proposal for an anthology project to raise awareness and funds for water safety engineering throughout vulnerable communities in Nigeria and the African Continent, months were spent exploring potential charitable hosts for this innovative enterprise. But, as short stories, memoirs, essays, and poetry were donated to this anthology project, and while the fame of and interest in the GeoTek Monitor is widespread and growing, our fundraising goals were generally considered too small-scale for the hosting we pursued. We took the time to get expert and legal advice on how best to direct funds raised to provide communities with water while maintaining transparency. That did take more time than we initially expected, but we felt it was important not to risk legal missteps or misperceptions in the handling of charitable funds, if they could be foreseen and avoided.

While the Journal of the Fantastic in the Arts is sponsoring this collection’s publication, Yemoja’s Tears is not subject to the standard reprint obligations of the Journal. All donated writings will be made available in perpetuity in Yemoja’s Tears in print, electronic, and audio format, as they become available. Rights to the contents donated to the anthology revert to their author six months after publication in Yemoja’s Tears. Sales of the anthology will continue to fund researched charitable clean water projects as long as the anthology is available through the publisher.

Thank you to all these talented writers for your contributions to Yemoja’s Tears, and thank you to those who purchase it for spreading hope and, with it, the opportunity to heal and thrive, with clean water.

--Novella Brooks de Vita, Acquisitions Editor-in-Chief, Journal of the Fantastic in the Arts

 

When Novella asked me if I would consider taking part in this project, I never could have dreamed what I was signing on for. Some of my fondest memories of the summer of 2024 involve sitting in my mother’s backyard with my laptop, sometimes so riveted by what I was reading that I forgot to edit, and had to go back and start over.

      This anthology includes, among other things, informative factual pieces, breathtaking snapshots of other worlds, breathtaking snapshots of this world, keen analysis, stirring poetry, gritty space opera, haunting mystery, chilling futures, histories both idyllic and enraging,  and incisive political commentary. It is, by turns, hopeful, fearful, elegiac, otherworldly, quite rightly furious, moving, and galvanizing.

      It has been a magnificent honour to be part of the process of getting Yemoja’s Tears ready for publication, and I hope you enjoy it as much as I have. Authors—thank you for writing.  Readers—thank you for reading!

      --Cat Ashton, Production Editor-in-Chief, Journal of the Fantastic in the Arts