We are proud to announce that “Giant of the Stars” by Alex Langer, (On Spec VOL 34 No 3) is a finalist in the Fiction category for the annual Alberta Magazine Publishers Awards. The winners will be announced at their banquet in September.  Well done, Alex!

Tangent reviewer Victoria Silverwolf has a new review of On Spec VOL 35 No 2. You can see it here.

With a cover  by Dan O’Driscoll, our new issue is ready for the readers. Subscribers and reviewers will be receiving links to download their copies.

New readers, or those whose subscription may have lapsed can easily get a copy from our Ko-fi page.

For a look at the Table of Contents, click on the link below.

Issue_132_TOC

While On Spec is strictly a short fiction and poetry magazine, we know that many of our readers are also fans of longer works of fiction, especially by Canadian writers.

We are pleased to share the news that the Sunburst Award, after a hiatus of several years, is back with the 2025 jury’s  Long List of books published in 2024.  From this list, a Short List will be released in July, and the winning book will be announced this Fall.  The winner of the Sunburst receives a cash prize and a lovely medallion bearing the Sunburst design. 

Just in time for you to get your summer reading list together. – Make sure that your local library carries these wonderful books!

There’s still time to enter the Hummimgbird Flash Fiction contest provided by our friends at Pulp Literature Magazine!

We are very proud to announce the one of our own fiction editors at On Spec has won a prestigious Alberta writing award.  Lareina Abbott was awarded the Jon Whyte Memorial Unpublished Essay Award for her essay entitled “Laid Bear”. 

The essay is taken from her unpublished back to culture memoir. You can follow Lareina’s Instagram page here. 

Congratulations to all the winners and runners-up!

Convention appearances for On Spec are rare these days, but Managing Editor Diane L. Walton will be at Y-Con in beautiful Yarmouth, NS this weekend, selling out some of our inventory of print copies of On Spec.

She’s also making a presentation, cheekily titled “IT CAME FROM THE SLUSHPILE: The Good, Bad and Ugly of Stories we get at On Spec” (No real authors were harmed in the making of this presentation)

Author Nancy Kilpatrick was something of a legend in Canadian SF&F and Horror writing circles. If you are a fan of vampire fiction, you’d know her work. And her fellow writers were stunned to learn of her recent death from cancer.

On Spec‘s Poetry editor, Colleen Anderson, pays tribute to her late colleague on her blog post, which she has allowed us to share with our readers.

We are told that the Voters’ Package for the annual Aurora Awards is now available for download. Members of the Canadian Science Fiction and Fantasy Association are eligible to vote.

One of the nominees is Shantell Powell for her poem, “Angakkuq”  in issue #130. Below is a photo of Shantell and editor Lareina Abbott at the Banff Centre recently.

Jim Beveridge is also a nominee for his art on our cover of issue 130, “Captains of Black and Brass”

And On Spec is a finalist in the Best Related Work category.

Not a Member? It’s easy to join. 

The Voters’ Package gives you copies of al the nominated books, along with more detail information and samples for all other categories in the Auroras.  Check it out soon!

As we work to prepare our next issue, it’s nice to see such a positive review of our current one. R. Graeme Cameron gives us this lovely gift in his review of On Spec VOL 35 No 1.