Spec-Lit

Spec-Lit, edited by award-winning novelist and short story writer Phyllis Eisenstein, is an exciting new anthology of temporary speculative fiction issued by Columbia College Chicago. This second volume of Spec-Lit contains more of the best student fiction from Eisenstein's long-running and popular Science Fiction Writing class at Columbia, as well as guest stories by other Chicago-area writers. The student stories range from the surreal to the apocalyptic, from the twisted realities of the computer-drenched world of next year to the mysteries of distant planets in the far future. The guest stories include new fiction by Eisenstein herself and by Valerie J. Freireich (novelist, award winner, and former Eisenstein student), and an exceptional, hard-to-find reprint, "In the House of the Worm", by George R.R. Martin (multiple award winner, novelist, and writer for the popular television series, "Beauty and the Beast"). The handsome color cover is by the legendary Ed Emshwiller ("EMSH"), whose art graced the covers of many of the best-known and best-loved science fiction novels and magazines of the 1950s and '60s. Eisenstein students have won top honors in the Writers of the Future Contest and in the ISFiC (Illinois Science Fiction in Chicago) Writers Contest, and honorable mention in the Asimov's Magazine Undergraduate Writing Contest. Readers of speculative literature and science fiction will find these stories fresh and vigorous, and as thoughtful and entertaining as any being published today.