Randall Kenan was a remarkable writer and teacher, whose unexpected death in 2020 sent tremors of grief throughout both the literary and academic world. Born and raised in North Carolina in a Baptist family; he was a voracious reader throughout his entire life, a self proclaimed "closet Anglophile" citing Robert Louis Stevenson, Jules Verne and Dickens as favourites - remarking that "A Christmas Carol is one of the greatest stories ever told," and confessing to reading Dracula every autumn throughout high school. As well as being an "unapologetic fan" of Stephen King, Arthur C. Clarke, Isaac Asimov, Frank Herbert, and a reader of comic books, all stories that went on to influence his own writing and unique blend of fantasy and realism in his novel A Visitation of Spirits. A Visitation of Spirits deals with themes of Christianity, faith, sin, queerness, family, and being black in the rural south. Horace Cross, wrestling with his identity, attempts to turn himself into a bird, but in t...