The Literary-Speculative Issue
How do we sum up our second Literary-Speculative issue? Let’s just say we’re so enthused about this edition, and the submissions we’ve been receiving, that we’ve decided to add a second lit-spec issue to our annual schedule. The next one will come out in January, 2022. The guidelines for submitting are on our website.
Issue 7 is a special one. It contains debut fiction from well-known astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson and his long-time editor Avis Lang. Their story, “The Pageant” imagines a future in which earth must decide how to welcome visitors from beyond the solar system. Another of our stories has been selected for inclusion in the course reading requirements for UCLA’s “Environment and Cultures” lecture class. This one’s called “Le Déluge,” an environmental speculative piece by Alexa Weik von Mossner, an Austrian writer and scholar.
As usual, we have a selection of work from around the U.S. and the world, this time including writers from Pakistan, India, and Canada.
And this issue’s cover, “Time Traveler,” is a digital composite created by Maggie Taylor, one of the nation’s foremost artists working in Photoshop.
Now that many of you are removing your Covid masks and venturing out into the world again, we hope you still make time to enjoy great literature.
– Joe, Zac, Renee, Marci, Ai, Lauren, David, Ronak, Tommy
Table of Contents (click the links for stories and excerpts)
About the Cover
Really, Shockingly Bad Things, Sam Asher
Conversations with My Friend Trilobite, Jihoon Park
Twilight, Susan A. H. Grace
Le Déluge, Alexa Weik von Mossner
Blameless, sid sibo
Permeable, sid sibo
In the Forest, There are Harps, Aiden Baker
The Last Offering, Eleri Denham
Glowstick, Zuneera Shah
Unfolding, Lucy Zhang
The Library, Aditya Gautam
Breakwater, Jennifer Quail
Whiskers and Smoke, Kori Klinzing
First Consult Free, Carol M. Quinn
Fairytale Wedding, Carolyn R. Russell
Everybody Slept, Rachel Kowalsky
Secrets, Mark Thomas
Your Guide to the Interpretive Center, Marilee Dahlman
Do You Still? Margaret Erhart
Let Us Go and Serve Other Gods, Adam McOmber
Everything Ain’t for Everybody, Lyndsey Ellis
Envelopod, Berardo Manari
Wait. Watch. Graham Robert Scott
The Pageant, Avis Lang and Neil deGrasse Tyson
Contributors
If you like what you see here, please consider purchasing a copy of the issue using the sidebar to the right. A pdf is a mere $3, and a print copy is $11.99.