From Author Stein

We're excited to feature "Find You Voice" by Jake Stein in our awesome August 2025 issue of Electric Spec. Jake was kind enough to send us some comments.

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This is more of an allegorical story than I usually write, which was an interesting experience. Despite the title, I definitely didn't want to proselytize about how to "find your voice" as a story teller—rather, I just wanted to explore the concept of "voice" as a creature or living thing, rather than the abstract concept we tend to discuss—but in a weird way, the story ended up sort of taking a stance against... taking a stance? For instance, the end of the story seems to be professing that there's no "one way" to write... but isn't that argument essentially as didactic as the opposite stance? It seems that in attempting to write a story which discourages drawing blanket conclusions for aspiring writers, I inadvertently stuck a "moral" at the end.

But here I am playing devil's advocate against my own work! Sometimes you just have to let the story take you where it wants to take you, I suppose. Rereading this piece, I'm really proud of the language toward the end, when the voice shifts toward a more whimsical and playful tone, even rhyming at times (or at least coming close!). One last note: I received various critiques from early readers and editors about how I might restructure this story, and I'm happy to say—in keeping with the theme of the story—I didn't change much at all. Rather, I just let the story be what it was—because I liked it. At the end of the day, that's all that matters, isn't it?

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Interesting! Thanks, Jake! Be sure to check out "Find You Voice" and the rest of the stories as of August 31!

Awesome August 2025 Issue Live!

The awesome August 2025 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 Author Dixon

We're excited to feature "Full Nova" by Phillip E. Dixon in our awesome August 2025 issue of Electric Spec. Phillip was kind enough to send us some comments.

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Time travel stories often involve a character trying to change or prevent an action, choice, or situation that had a major effect on their life. For my story, I wanted to approach this time travel trope from a different angle. Here, the main character, Charlie, can't change the past or do anything to prevent his partner's death. What he does get, though, is closure and resolution courtesy of Celeste's knowledge and ability to give him what he needs: a last moment with Rebecca. The story is also set in a world where time itself is a commodity, and we see the same haves and have-nots that exist in the real world now, as well as corporate burdens that often command people's lives and expend our most precious resource, which is our time.

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Interesting! Thanks, Phillip! Be sure to check out "Full Nova" and the rest of the stories on August 31!

From Author Dove

We're excited to feature "Half Lives" by Alan Dove in our awesome August 2025 issue of Electric Spec. Alan was kind enough to send us some comments.

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I've spent my whole career thinking about science and scientists, and one recurring theme is the gap between how most people think research works, and how it actually happens.

Most experiments fail. The controls die, the apparatus you cobbled together breaks, or the cool thing you thought you'd discovered turns out to be an artifact. Sometimes something works as intended, which is a nice change of pace. But the best thing, the moment scientists live for, isn't when an experiment works, but when it fails in an interesting way. When you're scratching your head saying "wait, that can't happen," you just might have stumbled onto something new.

This story started out with the usual sort of sci-fi musing: "wouldn't it be cool if we could ..." Then I wondered who would discover such a capability, under what circumstances, and how would they first realize it? I decided it would probably happen when they were trying to do something else. And maybe they'd think the experiment had failed.

Initially, I started with a very different cast of characters, and had trouble deciding how to shape the story. Once I hit on the idea of a graduate student making the opening discovery, everything suddenly came together. Heather finds herself confronted with something that doesn't make sense, and gets sucked into figuring it out. She learns a few other things along the way. To the extent that there is a theme, it emerged from what these characters wanted to tell me.

I hope people enjoy reading "Half Lives" as much as I enjoyed writing it.

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Interesting! Thanks, Alan! Be sure to check out "Half Lives" and the rest of the stories on August 31!

From Author Mattravers-Taylor

We're excited to feature "Hats" by Christopher Mattravers-Taylor in our awesome August 2025 issue of Electric Spec. Christopher was kind enough to send us some comments.

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This story was written for a competition that had 'identity' as the prompt (perhaps I strayed a bit in my story!). The inspiration came when my wife was seriously ill in hospital for quite a long time, and I struggled to juggle work with looking after our young daughter. I made an offhand comment to my mother-in-law about putting on my childcare hat, and then it was only a short hop to think that there could by a physical manifestation of such hat swapping. Add a dash of corporate greed and employee frustration, and there you go!

I think the stress and helplessness I felt at the time bled into the story, which was both unexpected and cathartic, and I do think it has a kind of angry energy that my other work doesn't have.

I'd love to dedicate the piece to my wife and children, Carly, Kara and Thomas. They're the best family anyone could wish for!

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Interesting! Thanks, Christopher! Be sure to check out "Hats" and the rest of the stories on August 31!

August Issue TOC Preview!

August is a busy time of year! Rest assured we are hard at work on the awesome August 2025 issue of Electric Spec. I'm pleased to pass along a preview of our Table of Contents:

• Full Nova by Phillip E. Dixon
• Find Your Voice by Jake Stein
• Half Lives by Alan Dove
• Hats by Christopher Mattravers-Taylor
• The Show Must Go On by D.A. D'Amico
• Editor's Corner: Charles Kowalski Interview by Grayson Towler & Candi Cooper-Towler

Woo hoo! I can't wait!

From Author Pae

We're excited to feature "The Sword and the Scabbard, or Which Do You Prefer?" by Evelyn Pae in our marvelous May 2025 issue of Electric Spec. Evelyn was kind enough to send us some comments.

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When I was a kid I had an illustrated children's version of the Legends of King Arthur, which started my fascination with Arthurian lore. One of my favorite stories from that book was the part where Arthur gets Excalibur from the Lady of the Lake. Later, Merlin tells him that the sword's scabbard is more valuable than the sword itself, because it prevents the carrier from losing blood. What is interesting to me now as an adult is the inherent "sense" of such stories -- how as children, or fantasy readers, we're willing to accept the ring of truth in certain claims or turns of phrase, sometimes without being able to explain why.

In the past year I've been lucky to stumble upon a site run by author L. R. Tourmaline, the Arthurian Preservation Project (arthurianpreservationproject.tumblr.com) which is a highly accessible, extensively fact-checked directory of all sorts of Arthurian media, including "intro" guides for folks looking to get into reading some of the source texts for the first time.

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Interesting! Thanks, Evelyn! Be sure to check out "The Sword and the Scabbard, or Which Do You Prefer?" and the rest of the stories now!