Dreaming in Tongues: Review of Sheree Renée Thomas’s The Tongue I Dream In

Sullivan Summer Under Review:The Tongue I Dream In. Sheree Renée Thomas. PM Press, September 2026. Reading Sheree Renée Thomas’s The Tongue I Dream In, as the mercury tops triple digits in my city, billionaire wedding announcements appear via jumbotron, and semiquincentennial celebrations are interrupted by storms surely sent by the ancestors, one thing is obvious: it’s a good time for the Black speculative. An addition to the PM Press Outspoken Authors Series—a place where “today’s edgiest fiction writers showcase their most provocative and politically challenging stories”, according to the press’s website—The Tongue I Dream In includes such stories, alongside poetry, essays, interviews, and Thomas’s 2022 Juneteenth Afrofuturism Gala keynote speech, which asks what stories we tell ourselves “to keep going, to not remain paralyzed in anger, in power-less-ness, and in fear.” Meeting the call for provocative and political, Thomas is adept at sliding between memories, present realities,…