Happy Holidays!

Like the rest of you, the Electric Spec Editors are ready for 2020 to come to an end.
Here's hoping you and your loved ones are safe and well and 2021 will be much, much better for all of us!

Take care!

Woo hoo! November 2020 issue!

Woo hoo! We're still reveling in the awesome November 2020 issue of Electric Spec!
What's your favorite story?

• "Face the World" by Jamie Lackey--Our near-future tech story of the issue. Being able to portray any emotion whether you mean it or not might seem like the perfect answer to navigating the dating scene--until you try it.
• "Healing the Unicorn" by Maureen Bowden--A classic high-spirited fantasy romance. We've published Maureen's stories before, but she seems to have really found her writer's voice in this one.
• "Mija" by John Visclosky--A literal take on what it means to give your heart away. I'm not crying, you're crying!
• "Frost" by Dor Atkinson--The tale of a small prophecy that is a long, long time in the making. And an unexpected ending to what might seem like a simple ghost story on the surface.
• "Love Me Tinder" by Sarina Dorie--Okay, maybe this one is more like the transition story from Halloween into winter, but still a high-energy story, and maybe Tinder's not exactly the territory of "love" but it's as close as you might expect to get if you're a demon spider.

Thank you to our artist, authors, and staff! Woo hoo!

from Author Visclosky

We hope you're enjoying the new issue of Electric Spec! One of favorites stories in it is John Visclosky's "Mija." Here's what he has to say:

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My favorite stories are usually those that hinge on very simple concepts. (My go-to example for this is usually 'It Follows,' a film whose entire hour and 47 minutes can neatly be described in just three words: sexually transmitted curse.) Even better if the story in question can pose a (hopefully) interesting question with which readers are left to grapple. In this case, I saw a chance to do both by literalizing a simple metaphorical concept with which most of us are probably familiar. We often say that loving someone is like giving them a piece of your heart. What if that was actually, painfully true? What if the ones who love us could take a piece of us with them?

Aside from the day-to-day problems this might present, it leaves readers with (what I hope is) a compelling question: what would you do if you knew that the more fiercely and frequently you loved, the less time you had left? I think a lot of us will tell ourselves that we would love just as freely and passionately as ever if faced with such a dilemma, but, really, who knows? Maybe not? Maybe we'd all hole up alone in the hopes of making it for the next hundred years.

Then again, what's the good of living for so long if you couldn't spend any of that time falling in love? (Other than avoiding contracting one of those pesky sexually transmitted curses that are always going around.)

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Very interesting! Thanks, John!
Check out all our favorites in the new issue!