Hey, it's Ampire's Book at the Day. I'm Andrew Limbaugh. Today, we've got Janelle Monet on the pot,

the Afro-Futurist pop star, and now author. She's got a new short story collection called The Memory

Librarian. And if you know Monet at all, you will not be surprised to hear that it's sci-fi,

dealing with these big themes of utopia and

queerness and blackness and feminism.

Like, if you haven't seen her music video for the song Pink from a few years back,

she references it in this interview with NPR's Aisha Roscoe.

And it starts in the desert with this crew of non-dudes rolling up to this crummy-looking

in called the Pink Hotel. And then once the Volk is kick in, they start dancing in these

vagina pants, as in pants that look like big vaginas. It's funny and weird and expressive

in a way that is uniquely monaes, which is interesting

because she talks in this interview about just now reaching the point in her career

where she can actually be fully authentic.

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Dick.

Our memories, our dreams, our emotions,

these are the parts of us that exemplify our humanity.

But in Janelle Monet's new collection of short stories,

those are the things that contaminate us.

...