I’ve been on the silent side of late as I went into obsession mode trying to “finish” the novel I’ve been working on for the last several years. I finished it – at least to the point at which I could send it to my readers – a few nights ago. Happily, I’m now able to concentrate again on other interests of mine, including this Substack. If you haven’t been holding your breath for my next posting or didn’t even notice my absence, no problem. The world, I learned around the age of seven, doesn’t revolve around me. But if you were wondering, Whatever happened to that super edifying Substack? then my apologies and thanks for your patience.
Another project that I’m turning my attention to again is the journal I co-edit with my friend Leila Philip, author most recently of Beaverland: How One Weird Rodent Made America. Our magazine, Speculative Nonfiction publishes on average twice a year, its focus on essays that are meditative, inventive, and that don’t necessarily rely on fact. That’s not to say that we ban fact-based essays – one can write a speculative essay about climate change, for instance, or issues of poverty and migration, race, class, space exploration. But a speculative essay can also be an essay that doesn’t depend on “facts” at all, but speculations on things that never happened and never will happen. The essays that we publish are sometimes deadly serious and at other times fanciful and fun. They often diverge from traditional forms, but not always. We’ve just published a new issue and I invite you to explore.
https://www.speculativenonfiction.org/
Not only will you find some provocative examples of this lively sub-genre but you can also read our manifesto here. https://www.speculativenonfiction.org/manifesto
I hope you enjoy SN. Until next week!