Stephen Embleton

  As always, I got an excellent brief from both the publisher, Mirari Press , and author, Lebogang Matseke. Lebo's notes on characters and clothing were essential – even down to Kgosi's sneakers! Love those sneakers. What set the tone for me was the description of the "storm goddess" Oya's dress – "ox-blood red blouse and a skirt composed of nine distinct coloured cloths, each panel carrying the memory of her lost children." This gave me the inspiration to use fabric textures throughout (including the frayed fabric for the "ground"), as well as challenging me to use SO MANY colours. This also meant the dress was going to add a visually dynamic, flowing aspect to the illustration – and using a right to left flow for Kgosi stepping from the real world into the Afterlife. Get your copy (not yet!) and find out more at Mirari Press. Death Rattle – 2026 Stephen Embleton As always, it begins with the roughest of rough design and layout sketch. You can...

  Thanks to Ainehi Edoro and Brittle Paper (from the start of this Sauúti journey) for this Sauúti Terrors feature and the opportunity to go into the Sauúti Collective more deeply.  🙏🏼🔥💫 We covered building a shared African sci-fi/fantasy world from scratch, the five planets, two suns, sound magic, and our Story Bible that lets writers step in and create. Read the full feature on Brittle Paper.

  WOW! Two of my cover illustrations made the BSFA long list for Best Artwork ! 🙏🏼 Made possible by creatively focused clients and authors = Magic ✨  Eugen Bacon’s The Nga’phandileh Whisperer (Stars and Sabers Publishing) Nerine Dorman’s The Company of Birds (Mirari Press) Eugen Bacon’s The Nga’phandileh Whisperer (Stars and Sabers Publishing) Nerine Dorman’s The Company of Birds (Mirari Press) Thank you to all who nominated. And congrats to my author friends and fellow artists who made all the categories!! BUY HERE: Eugen Bacon’s The Nga’phandileh Whisperer (Stars and Sabers Publishing) Nerine Dorman’s The Company of Birds (Mirari Press) #NoAI

  Vincent Sammy Cover Illustration & Design 2026 is going to be a busy year for me (woohoo!) and something I've been waiting to announce is the worldwide reissue of Bones & Runes in the Fall of 2026! Rosarium Publishing , and Bill Campbell, will be launching Bones & Runes in the US and globally. As an illustrator, I got to see someone else's (spot on) interpretation of my story and some of the key elements featured in Bones & Runes. Vincent Sammy delivered a striking, bold, and interesting take on the world and the three main characters – the porcupine quills (Mlilo), the khaṭvāṅga (Amira), and the crow feather (Dan), with the central river from Abaphansi as the backdrop. Thank you, Vincent!

  I’m happy to announce I am being represented by the Elise Dillsworth Literary Agency, in particular for my current novel in progress (nearly there!).  Having an agent who believes in my writing means a lot, and I’m grateful to Elise for the opportunity. 🙏🏼 We keep on writing!

  I'm proud to have my essay  Cosmologies and Languages Building Africanfuturism  featured in this now award-winning collection edited by the visionary Eugen Bacon. The collection won in the  Ignyte 2025  category OUTSTANDING CREATIVE NONFICTION for works related to the field of speculative fiction . My essay covers world-building and cosmology referring to my two novels ( "Soul Searching" , and  "Bones & Runes" ) and the Sauúti Collective. Read more on the anthology , where we all share our unique perspectives and worldviews on our writing in the speculative realm.

Illustration: Akintoba Kalejaye We (co-editors, Eugen Bacon, Cheryl Ntumy and myself) as excited to reveal the cover for the next volume of Sauúti stories and poems. We had the pleasure of editing and writing our own terror-filled stories for this volume due out worldwide in January 2026 from  Flame Tree Publishing , and  Simon & Schuster .  My short story  'Separation'  is among these awesomely terrifying stories and poems.  Editors – L-R: Eugen Bacon, Cheryl S. Ntumy, Stephen Embleton Releasing worldwide on 20 January 2026! You can find more information on  Flame Tree Publishing , and pre-orders via  Simon & Schuster ,  Amazon , and Bookshop . Flame Tree's "Beyond & Within" series

WATCH HERE Now available to watch : reading my Sauúti novella, ' Undulation ', from Seattle Worldcon 2025 on Wednesday 13 August. "Stephen reads from his 2024 Nommo Award-winning novella, “Undulation,” published in the Sauútiverse anthology, Mothersound . “Undulation” is a story of storytellers, of questioning the foundations of society, of mothers and their children, of finding your voice and finding the truth. “Undulation,” by Sauútiverse founding member Stephen Embleton, digs deep into Sauúti creation myths and epic poems, and the people who tell them—the ruevaagi, custodians of knowledge. The Sauúti shared world (or Sauútiverse), created by a collective of 10 African writers and creatives, is an Afrocentric secondary world with both humanoid and non-humanoid creatures living in a five-planet, binary star system."