 OnSpec Magazine Winter 2006 | |
| Categories | science fiction, fantasy |
|---|---|
| Frequency | Quarterly |
| Publisher | Diane Walton, Managing Editor |
| Founded | 1989 |
| Country | Canada |
| Based in | Edmonton, Alberta |
| Website | onspecmag |
On Spec [1] is a digest-sized, perfect-bound, Canadian quarterly magazine publishing stories and poetry in science fiction, fantasy, and allied genres broadly grouped under the "speculative fiction" umbrella.
Based in Edmonton, Alberta, [2] On Spec was founded in 1989 by a small group of Edmonton writers who joined together to form The Copper Pig Writers Society. [3] At the time, there was no paying market for English speculative fiction in Canada (though paying markets in French did exist). On Spec is Canada's longest-running, and according to author Robert J. Sawyer, most successful, English-language magazine in the field. [4]
Much more like a traditional small literary magazine than the mass-market-styled American science fiction digests such as Analog and Asimov's , On Spec was founded to address the frustration that English-speaking Canadian SF writers faced having to "Americanize" their stories for the existing US markets. [5]
Candas Jane Dorsey is a Canadian poet and science fiction novelist who resides in her hometown of Edmonton, Alberta. Dorsey became a writer from an early age and works across genre boundaries, writing poetry, fiction, mainstream and speculative, short and long form, arts journalism and arts advocacy. Dorsey has also written television and stage scripts, magazine and newspaper articles, and reviews.
Robert James Sawyer is a Canadian and American science fiction writer. He has had 24 novels published and his short fiction has appeared in Analog Science Fiction and Fact, Amazing Stories, On Spec, Nature, and numerous anthologies. He has won many writing awards, including the best-novel Nebula Award (1995), the best-novel Hugo Award (2003), the John W. Campbell Memorial Award (2006), the Robert A. Heinlein Award (2017), and more Aurora Awards than anyone else in history.
Mark Shainblum is a Canadian writer who now lives in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada. Though he has worked as a journalist and editor, Shainblum is best known as a science fiction and comic book writer.
The Aurora Awards are a set of primarily literary awards given annually for the best Canadian science fiction or fantasy professional and fan works and achievements from the previous year. The event is organized by Canvention and the awards are given out by the Canadian SF and Fantasy Association and SFSF Boreal Inc. Originally they were known as the Canadian Science Fiction and Fantasy Awards which was shortened to CSFFA and nicknamed the Casper Awards based on that acronym, but this name was changed to the Aurora Awards in 1991, because the Aurora is the same in English and French. The categories have expanded from those focused on literary works to include categories that recognize achievements in comics, music, poetry, art, film and television.
Peter Watts is a Canadian science fiction author. He specializes in hard science fiction. He earned a Ph.D from the University of British Columbia in 1991 from the Department of Zoology and Resource Ecology. He went on to hold several academic research and teaching positions, and worked as a marine-mammal biologist. He began publishing fiction around the time he finished graduate school.
Sean Stewart is an American-Canadian science fiction and fantasy author.
A science fiction magazine is a publication that offers primarily science fiction, either in a hard-copy periodical format or on the Internet. Science fiction magazines traditionally featured speculative fiction in short story, novelette, novella or novel form, a format that continues into the present day. Many also contain editorials, book reviews or articles, and some also include stories in the fantasy and horror genres.
Neo-opsis Science Fiction Magazine is a digest sized, perfect bound, Canadian magazine publishing science fiction and fantasy stories, science and opinion articles, SF news and reviews. Neo-opsis is based in Victoria, British Columbia, Canada. It is distributed to book stores by Magazines Canada.
The 67th World Science Fiction Convention (Worldcon), also known as Anticipation, was held on 6–10 August 2009 at the Palais des congrès de Montréal in Montréal, Québec, Canada.
Karin Lowachee is a Canadian author of speculative fiction. She is best known for her Warchild series, including Warchild (2002), Burndive (2003), and Cagebird (2005).
Alyxandra Margaret "A. M." Dellamonica is a Canadian science fiction writer who has published over forty short stories in the field since the 1980s. Dellamonica writes in a number of subgenres including science fiction, fantasy, and alternate history. Their stories have been selected for "Year's Best" science fiction anthologies in 2002 and 2007. Dellamonica is non-binary.
Barb Galler-Smith is a Canadian science fiction and fantasy author living in Edmonton, Alberta.
Sofia Samatar is an American scholar, novelist and educator from Indiana.
Sarah Pinsker is an American science fiction and fantasy author. She is a nine-time finalist for the Nebula Award, and her debut novel A Song for a New Day won the 2019 Nebula for Best Novel while her story Our Lady of the Open Road won 2016 award for Best Novelette. Her novelette "Two Truths and a Lie" received both the Nebula Award and the Hugo Award. Her fiction has also won the Philip K. Dick Award, the Theodore Sturgeon Memorial Award and been a finalist for the Hugo, World Fantasy, and Tiptree Awards.
Fonda Lee is a Canadian-American author of speculative fiction. She is best known for writing The Green Bone Saga, the first of which, Jade City, won the 2018 World Fantasy Award and was named one of the 100 Best Fantasy Books of All Time by Time magazine. The Green Bone Saga was also included on NPR's list, "50 Favorite Sci-Fi and Fantasy Books of the Past Decade".
Kelly Robson is a Canadian science fiction, fantasy and horror writer. She has won the 2018 Nebula Award for Best Novelette for her novelette "A Human Stain" published at Tor.com. She has also been nominated for the Nebula Award for Best Novella in 2016 for "Waters of Versailles" and in 2019 for "Gods, Monsters and the Lucky Peach", both published at Tor.com; "Waters of Versailles" also received the 2016 Prix Aurora Award for best Canadian short fiction.
Kate Heartfield is a Canadian author of fantasy, science fiction, horror, as well as a non-fiction writer and editor.
Lorna Diane Toolis was a Canadian librarian. She was head of the Merril Collection of Science Fiction, Speculation, and Fantasy at the Toronto Public Library from 1986 to 2017. She was inducted into the Canadian Science Fiction & Fantasy Association Hall of Fame in 2017.
Premee Mohamed is an Indo-Caribbean scientist and speculative fiction author based in Edmonton, Alberta. She also works as Social Media Manager and Associate Editor for Escape Pod.
Karen Osborne is an American author of fantasy and science fiction, active in the field since 2008, with most of her work appearing since 2016.
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