P. Djéli Clark Credit: c/o Tombolo Books
In America, demons wear white hoods.
Black speculative fiction author P. Djéli Clark’s critically acclaimed novella “Ring Shout” begins after the film “Birth of a Nation” has cast a spell across the United States, summoning demons empowered by the darkest thoughts of white folks. Black resistance fighters draw from the magical power of the Ring Shout tradition to hunt down and destroy these Ku Klux monsters before they can end the world.
Published in 2020, “Ring Shout” won that year’s Nebula Award, as well as the Locus and British Fantasy Awards in 2021 for Best Novella. A historian himself, Clark was inspired by his own research into ex-slave narratives, the Ring Shout practice, and Gullah/Geechee culture to create this exultant, enthralling, prophetic work.
Ahead of the event, University of South Florida Professor Donnie Ibn Malik Ali McClendon, or “Professor Mac” shared a few words on his own research into the African American Ring Shout tradition, and his perspective on the depiction of this real-world spiritual practice in Clark’s novella.
Look below to read Professor Mac’s essay and check out some of the best book and literary events happening in Tampa Bay between Oct. 16-31. For more (free!) events, check out your local library at hcplc.org/events.
The shout was not born in safety; it was forged in the brutal crucible of transatlantic captivity, yet it emerged as a sonic insurgency cloaked in sacred ritual. Where white supremacist epistemologies perceived chaos, the enslaved constructed coherence. Every spiraling motion, every syncopated stomp in the ring, becomes a rebuke of empire’s logic and an invocation of an alternative cosmology. One rooted not in domination, but in sacred reciprocity. As a “kinetic theology,” the shout not only expresses resistance, it enacts it. It becomes a ritual choreography through which American African bodies rewrite the terms of reality, moving counterclockwise against the dominant flow of time and narrative, turning trauma into memory and memory into power.
Through this embodied cosmology, the shout constructs a “ThirdSpace of spirit possession”. A liminal zone where hegemonic meaning unravels, and alternative ontologies emerge. This is not simply metaphorical; it is spiritual infrastructure. In the shout’s ecstatic convergence language gives way to vibration, and vibration to transformation. The shout does not convince the intellect; it ruptures it. It bypasses colonial logic entirely, embedding itself in the nervous system, the breath, the blood. In this way, it shields its practitioners from the epistemic violence of colonialism. Not by arguing with it, but by vibrating at a frequency it cannot interpret or contain.
The power of the Ring Shout lies, too, in its pedagogy. Not a pedagogy of abstraction or theory, but a visceral and recursive transmission of knowledge through rhythm, through intergenerational movement. This “sacred curriculum” defies the Western academy’s fetish for textuality, insisting instead that truth is something felt, something danced, something shouted into being. The elders, like Lawrence McKiver of the McIntosh County Shouters in historical fact or Maryse’s guides in speculative fiction, do not merely teach about resistance; they embody it. The shout encodes ancestral wisdom in motion, allowing each generation to re-enter the circuit, to remember themselves forward.
Crucially, this tradition refuses isolation. It resonates across diasporic soundscapes. From the thunder of Bomba drums in Puerto Rico to the haunting tones of Vodun chants in Benin. These sonic technologies form a constellation of Black survivance, articulating what empire cannot erase, the unbroken continuity of diasporic memory. They are not merely expressions of cultural pride, they are tactical resistances, each rhythm a strategy, each harmony a haven.
In Ring Shout, then, Maryse does not wield magic as fantasy. She channels a historical technology designed not only to survive oppression, but to undo it from within. The shout’s ambiguity, its refusal to be pinned down as dance or doctrine, resistance or reverence, is its strength. It evades commodification, resists translation, and denies assimilation. It remains illegible to empire precisely because it is sung in a language that both predates conquest and outlives it.
Thus, the Ring Shout is not merely armor, it is ancestral software encoded in the bones, designed to update itself in each new era of struggle. It teaches us that liberation is not only something we fight for, but something we remember through breath, through rhythm, through sacred convergence. In a world threatened by demonic systems masquerading as order, the shout does not merely protect, it reprograms. It remakes the world in the image of the ancestors’ dream.
In this light, the most potent resistance is not the blade or the bullet, but the breath-bound refusal to forget who we are. The shout teaches us, as Maryse learns, that true power lies in the sound that reverberates through generations, unbroken, undestroyed, ever-alive and always circling.
‘Mockingbird Court’: An Evening With author duo Juneau Black Thursday, Oct. 16. 7 p.m.-8 p.m. RSVP. Tombolo Books, St. Petersburg
Tombolo Queer Comic Book Club reads ‘Carmilla’ by Amy Chu & Soo Lee Saturday, Oct. 18. 12 p.m.- 1 p.m. Allendale Church (special location), St. Petersburg
Steamy Lit Reading Rainbow Book Club reads ‘The Haunting of William Thorn’ by Ben Alderson Saturday, Oct. 18. 6 p.m.- 7 p.m. RSVP. Steamy Lit, Tampa
Bookends Pop-Up Shop at Deviant Libation Book Exchange Sunday, Oct. 19. 2 p.m.- 5 p.m. Deviant Libation, Tampa
‘Like A Wave We Break’: An Evening With Jane Marie Chen Sunday, Oct. 19. 3:30 p.m.- 5 p.m. $7. Oxford Exchange, Tampa
Steamy Lit Trope Book Club reads ‘But Not Too Bold’ by Hache Pueyo Sunday, Oct. 19. 4 p.m.- 5 p.m. RSVP. Steamy Lit, Tampa
The Library Book Club reads ‘The Satisfaction Cafe’ by Kathy Wang Tuesday, Oct. 21. 6 p.m.-7:30 p.m. The Library, St. Petersburg
‘Ring Shout’: An Evening With P. Djéli Clark Tuesday, Oct. 21. 7 p.m.-8 p.m. RSVP. Tombolo Books, St. Petersburg
Bookends Pop-Up Bookshop & Game Night with Necronomicon & Mystical Millennial Wednesday, Oct. 22. 5 p.m.-10 p.m. Gasparilla Distillery, Tampa
Tombolo Sci-Fi Book Club reads ‘Parable of the Sower’ by Octavia Butler Wednesday, Oct. 22. 6:30 p.m.-7:30 p.m. Tombolo Books, St. Petersburg
Bonfire Poems: Themed Poetry Open Mic with Featured Poets Wednesday, Oct. 22. 6:30 p.m.-8:30 p.m. Book + Bottle, St. Petersburg
Murders, Monsters, Mysteries! A Haunted Event with Ginny Myers Sain Thursday, Oct. 23. 6 p.m.-7:30 p.m. JC Newman Cigar Company, Tampa
‘Other People’s Mothers’: An Evening With Julie Marie Wade Thursday, Oct. 23. 7 p.m.-8 p.m. RSVP. Tombolo Books, St. Petersburg
Tombolo Fantasy Book Club reads ‘Isabella Nagg and the Pot of Basil’ by Oliver Darkshire Saturday, Oct. 25. 9 a.m.-10 a.m. Tombolo Books, St. Petersburg
The Moth leads 2-Day Storytelling Workshop at Wild Space Saturday, Oct. 25-Sunday, Oct. 26. 10 a.m.-4 p.m. Wild Space Gallery, St. Petersburg
Steamy Lit Halloween Pop-Up at Mezzo Market Saturday, Oct. 25. 12 p.m. Baum Avenue, St. Petersburg
‘The English Masterpiece’: An Evening With Katherine Reay Saturday, Oct. 25. 3:30 p.m.-5 p.m. $7. Oxford Exchange, Tampa
Tombolo Romance Book Club reads ‘Fan Service’ by Rosie Danan Sunday, Oct. 26. 9 a.m.-10 a.m. Tombolo Books, St. Petersburg
Lady Leaders + Readers Book Club reads ‘Invisible Women’ by Caroline Criado Perez Sunday, Oct. 26. 10 a.m.-12 p.m. Book + Bottle, St. Petersburg
Tampa Girls Book Club reads ‘Mexican Gothic’ by Silvia Moreno-Garcia Sunday, Oct. 26. 1 p.m. COHatch West Tampa
Steamy Lit Romance Book Club reads ‘Love at First Fright’ by Nadia El-Fassi Sunday, Oct. 26. 4 p.m.-5 p.m. RSVP. Steamy Lit, Tampa
Tampa History Center’s Black History Book Club reads “Malcolm X: The Last Speeches” Tuesday, Oct. 28. 5 p.m.-6:45 p.m. Tampa Black History Museum, Tampa
The Library Book Club reads ‘Culpability’ by Bruce Holsinger Wednesday, Oct. 29. 11:30 a.m.-1 p.m. The Library, St. Petersburg
‘The Dead Dad Diaries’: An Evening With Erin Slaughter Wednesday, Oct. 29. 7 p.m.-8 p.m. RSVP. Tombolo Books, St. Petersburg
Book + Bottle Fiction Book Club reads ‘Mayra’ by Nicky Gonzalez Thursday, Oct. 30. 6 p.m.-7:30 p.m. Book + Bottle, St. Petersburg
Tombolo Book Club reads ‘Will There Ever Be Another You’ by Patricia Lockwood Thursday, Oct. 30. 6:30 p.m.-7:30 p.m. Tombolo Books, St. Petersburg
‘Happy Go Lucky’: An Evening With David Sedaris Thursday, Oct. 30. 7:30 p.m. $88. Ferguson Hall at David A. Straz Center for the Performing Arts, Tampa
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