Who Broke the Future? with T. Aaron Cisco // Diverse Futures // Northern Commons
Patrick Stein
June 3, 2026
Northern Commons is hosting Diverse Futures—a series of lectures and discussions. Each session features a different presenter and that presenter's view of what the future can be. Come, join us for these events.
Who Broke the Future?
Our first presentation will be Who Broke the Future? with T. Aaron Cisco.
The presentation will be at 7:00 p.m. on July 15th, 2026 at Northern Commons, 308 E. Prince St., #246, St. Paul, MN.
You can RSVP on Luma.
Cisco is an Afrofuturist writer and lifelong nerd. Their talk will move between personal storytelling, reading excerpts and speculative worldbuilding, and cultural reflection. Cisco will share how his own work wrestles with questions of power, memory, and responsibility, and how fandom itself can be both a refuge and a battleground for imagining who gets to exist in the future.
About the Presenter
T. Aaron Cisco (he/she/they) is an Amazon-bestselling author of speculative fiction whose work blends science fiction, horror, and social allegory with character-driven storytelling. He is the author of over two dozen published novels, novellas, OpEds, essays, and articles including the Land of Bone trilogy (The Unbanished, The Unrested, The Unbodied), Black Nerd Blue Box: The Wibbly Wobbly Memoirs of a Lonely Whovian, Steal the F**king Moon and, most recently, The Hex Worker Diaries.
Cisco's writing frequently explores systems of power, exploitation, and survival in near-future and speculative settings. Beyond his own works, Cisco was a contributing writer to OUTSIDE IN REGENERATES: 163 New New Perspectives on 163 Classic DOCTOR WHO Stories from ATB Publishing, received the MN Society of Professional Journalists Page One Award, recognition as one of the Ten Black Change-Makers Influencing the Twin Cities Arts Scene, and has been featured on Hennepin County Libraries’ prestigious Minnesota Black Authors list.
An unapologetic, lifelong nerd, At the heart of everything Cisco does is an unrelenting commitment to “squee,” the pure joy and excitement that comes from sharing stories, celebrating imagination, and connecting with others through the power of creativity.