Author Description

Spec-Lit is an exciting new anthology of contemporary speculative fiction issued by Columbia College, Chicago, containing topflight stories by both students and instructors at this well-respected media-arts school. The thirteen student stories range from the dark and gritty to the completely unserious. This volume contains the best fiction by students from the first six years of the Science Fiction Writing class at Columbia taught by Phyllis Eisenstein. Three of the stories, To Protect and Profit by John O'Shaughnessy, Letters to Luna by Jenna Rosenthal, and The Gambler by Jeremy Efroymson, have already been recommended by members of the Science Fiction Writers of America for their annual Nebula Award.Also included are two exceptional reprints by award-winning authors who have taught at Columbia: Gene Wolfe's intriguing and enigmatic The Changeling and Algis Budrys's ground-breaking slice of strange life on the tough streets of Chicago, Living Alone in the Jungle. The Budrys story appears here for the first time in a national publication.