CZM Book Club: Girls Who Look Through Glass, by Alex Smith

Black Punk Now gathers essays, interviews, and creative work examining Black participation in punk subcultures and the political and aesthetic implications thereof. The collection highlights musicians, writers, and artists who challenge stereotypes and expand understandings of punk as a global and racially diverse movement. Contributors discuss DIY ethics, musical innovation, and the ways punk intersects with race, gender, and class. The anthology situates Black punk practices within broader cultural histories and contemporary practices of resistance. It serves as both documentation and analysis of underrepresented voices in punk scenes.

Alex Smith's 'Girls Who Look Through Glass' follows Vonda, a West Philadelphia co-op worker who encounters a ghostly glass woman and is pulled into ancestral, time-bending visions. The story blends Afrofuturist elements, political critique, and speculative fantasy to explore grief, radicalization, and cultural memory. Smith uses surreal shifts between contemporary city life and mythic ancestral landscapes to dramatize the protagonist's sudden calling into a larger struggle against forces seeking to erase histories. The narrative critiques performative liberal politics while centering Black female embodiment and communal histories as sources of power. Originally appearing in Smith's collection Arc Dust, the piece exemplifies his spoken-word roots and Afrofuturist practice.

Arc Dust is a collection of short fiction by Alex Smith that blends Afrofuturist speculation, experimental language, and spoken-word intensity to explore identity, memory, and political histories. The stories often merge everyday urban settings with surreal, mythic, and temporal dislocations, centering marginalized experience and collective resistance. Smith's background in performance and art infuses the prose with rhythmic cadences and vivid sensory detail, creating an immersive reading experience. The collection includes 'Girls Who Look Through Glass' and other pieces that interrogate colonialism, grief, and the politics of culture through speculative frameworks. Published by Rosarium Publishing in 2022, Arc Dust has been recognized within contemporary Black speculative fiction circles.