Hi, I'm Lovar Burton and this is Lovar Burton Reads.

Where in every episode I hand-pick a different piece of short fiction and a read-it-tune.

The only thing these stories have in common is that I love them and I hope you will too.

Woo, this folks is exciting stuff today because I get to read another story by the master in K.

Jamison.

Now, you've heard her work on this podcast before, recorded both live and in studio and I

couldn't resist another opportunity to read from her latest collection How Long Till Black

Future Month.

In K is the author of the highly acclaimed trilogy of novels known collectively as The Broken

Earth and each installment of this series is one the Hugo Award for Best Science Fiction

novel.

She also has the first of a new fantasy series out in March called The City We Became and

more on that at the end of the episode.

The piece that I'm about to read today is a coming-of-age story set in a dystopian version

of the United States.

It's entitled Validictorian and we meet our protagonist, Zinneau, in an ordinary high

school somewhere in middle America.

She's stubborn, smart, a bit argumentative.

She's on her way to be named Validictorian.

And so, as you can imagine, she's quite driven and it made me think about the logic or the

forces that drives teenagers to do well.

Sometimes it's their parents, sometimes they see that this is the path to a better future.

...