We Are Live!

The fabulous November 2023 issue of Electric Spec is live!
Thank you, authors! Thank you to our artist!
Thank you to the whole Electric Spec team!

Thank you, readers!
We hope you enjoy this issue as much as we did.

From November Author Piel

We are excited to announce one of our featured stories in the awesome November 2023 Electric Spec is "I Am Your Demise" by Clifford Piel. Clifford was kind enough to send us some comments about the story:

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The idea of this story was taken from a dream my father-in-law had before he passed away in 2009. The premise of his dream revolved around a jigsaw puzzle that kept changing, but other details of his dream were murky. He had told my wife’s sister that the dream had haunted him so she thought the concept would be a good springboard for a story. I allowed it to stew in my head for a few months but I didn’t start typing until my wife recently reminded me again of her father’s dream.

I used a military veteran as my protagonist since my father-in-law, my son and I are all military veterans. As a father and Operation Desert Storm veteran, I also understand how worrisome it is when a loved one gets deployed, especially to a hostile region. I decided to tap into that worry and fear associated with the terrifying thought of “what if”. Once I got going, the rest just came together. What I have found for myself and writing is that sometimes it is best for an idea to steep in my head a while before I try to make any sense of it. And when I get stuck, I just read more. Reading tends to unclog the blockage.
I am very grateful to the editors at Electric Spec for choosing my story.

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Interesting! Thanks, Clifford! Be sure to check out all the new stories on November 30, 2023!

From November Artist Quinn

In November we're excited to feature another piece of art from Brian Malachy Quinn, "Of Mice and Men." Brian was kind enought send along a few words about his piece...

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"Of Mice and Men" was inspired by my early days as a children’s book illustrator where I got my start as an illustrator. Of course, you do lots of cute animals wearing clothes and engage in anthropomorphism. I took it to the limits here as you do with speculative fiction and put our raging rodent in armor and made him fierce. Illustrating children’s books severely limits what you can do as an artist and my passion was in speculative fiction which when I went to basically shut the door on illustrating in the children’s genre – but so be it. I’m quite content with where I am today.

The background here had to be unique and eye catching as is my calling card. Whereas the title refers to the futility of a nobler idea to the overpowering by a trite concept such as vanity - we have the banality that mice can be vanquished by men easily, but maybe all will be turned on its head and here our mouse can not only stand up to any mortal but be the better of any homo sapien on the battlefield. Will future evolution or accidental DNA manipulation in a lab undo the current status quo? Maybe not such a bad thing considering the state of the world today.

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Thanks, Brian! Very interesting! Without further ado, here's a tiny sneak peek at our cover art for the November 2023 issue of Electric Spec:

From November Author Bowden

We are excited to announce one of our featured stories in the awesome November 2023 Electric Spec is "Coffee with a Repentant Ghost" by Maureen Bowden. Maureen was kind enough to send us some comments about the story:

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I belong to a little circle of writers. We discuss and critique each other’s work, as well as chatting about life, the universe and everything. We constantly put the world to rights but unfortunately the world won’t listen. We also take turns in setting a writing challenge every month. A recent one was to write about meeting a ghost for coffee. It inspired my story, ‘Coffee with a Repentant Ghost.’

I approached the story by considering what would be the ghost’s motivation for hanging around on the physical plain. It must be more substantial than just nostalgia. I hit upon match-making with a touch of emotional blackmail thrown into the mix. I added a couple of references to non-fictional characters and actual places to assist in the suspension of disbelief and I had my story. It was great fun to write. I hope you good folk find it fun to read.

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Interesting! Thanks, Maureen! Be sure to check out all the new stories on November 30, 2023!

Spooky Production Meeting

Phew! The Electric Spec Editors managed to get through the slush pile before the November issue production meeting. Thank you for all your submissions! We appreciate it! There were many excellent stories to choose from.

We had a spooky Halloween-influenced meeting. There was a Covid-19 scare. Boo! There were a lot of spooky horror stories among the finalists. Boo! Consequently, we had to discuss a lot of spookiness. Boo!

Authors whose stories didn't quite fit the issue should have been contacted by now. (Check your spam or junk folder.) Authors whose stories did fit the issue are being contacted this week. (Check your spam or junk folder!) Once we hear back regarding the contract we will start editing. We are excited to work with our November authors!

The bottom line for readers: the notable November 2023 issue is well in hand. I'll start telling you about it next week. Maybe we'll even have some blog entries from contributors!