If you are an emerging writer, you will be very interested in Susan MacGregor’s new video series, Writers’ RX.  As she explains, it’s a prescription for new writers, to show what elements work for a reader of your work. What makes the editor take an interest in a story and maybe even buy it for publication.  Subscribe to her posts on YouTube.

We recently received the following from a new reader of On Spec in regard to our current issue #122.  With their permission, we quote:

I absolutely loved the story “I’ll have my toast with jam, please.” [Author Andrea Bernard] 

I’ll never look at my appliances the same way again. 

From time to time, we will be posting non-fiction articles from SFF writers, many of whom have been published on the pages of On Spec. This is the first of those articles.

When we received Andrew Knighton’s author biography and read that he’s ghostwritten over thirty novels “as other writers”, we knew there was a story to tell here. It is guaranteed to entertain, and give some insight into the book industry, and it might even inspire others to try the same way of supplementing their earnings.

Check out: Haunting the Pages: How to Ghostwrite for Profit and Practice

You won’t be disappointed.

Check out Graeme Cameron’s  review of our newest issue!

Issue #122 should be in our subscribers’ hands by early next week. You can see the first review of the issue here, courtesy of Eamonn Murphy at the British SFcrowsnest.

Hey everyone. Just wanted to let you know that Weightless Books will release the digital version of On Spec Issue #122 VOL 32 No 4 early in the New Year.  We are very pleased to have Weightless as our main distributor for On Spec. It’s also a great way to pick up back issues you may have missed seeing.

We have just gone to the printer with On Spec VOL 32 No 4, so this review by Tangent’s Victoria Silverwolf, will give you a small taste of what our readers will find in the issue.

Enjoy.

We don’t often publish works in the horror genre, so it is gratifying to see when the stories we publish get noticed. Ellen Datlow, editor of the annual “Best Horror of the Year” anthology, just posted her long list of stories that deserve notice.

Two of On Spec’s authors made the grade this year!

Congratulations to :

Michael Harris Cohen “I Pay You”, On Spec #118

James Edward O’Brien “A Meriwether Jacket” On Spec #118

Recently a reader asked us for an On Spec ad that he could place on his personal web site to provide a link to prospective subscribers and contributors to On Spec. We were happy to do this.

We have ads available for your use, and we’d certainly appreciate the links.

It’s been a good long ride, but Barry Hammond has officially retired as a Poetry editor with On Spec.  He will be missed. When we first started out, Barry was also a fiction editor. His meticulous and thorough hand-written notes to summarize the slush pile stories and make comments were extremely helpful to all of us on our Fight Nights, especially when we totally forgot what a story was actually about!

Barry has retired from his day job too, and we wish him all the best in this next chapter of his life. Thanks, Barry, from everyone at On Spec, and from our readers for the past 30+ years!