Sign Ups for the Writing SF & Fantasy Workshop are Open!
Welcome to the Speculative Literature Foundation!
The Speculative Literature Foundation is a non-profit organization dedicated to promoting literary quality in speculative fiction. We encourage promising new writers, assist established writers, facilitate the work of quality magazines and small presses in the genre, and work to promote a greater public appreciation of speculative fiction. Our mission is to promote literary quality in speculative fiction through our grants, programming, and more!
Speculative fiction is an umbrella term for any literature with a speculative or fantastical element, anything that isn’t strictly realist, such as science fiction, fantasy, folklore, fairy tales, ghost stories, and more.
The SLF serves the speculative literature community through support from people like you. We’re a 501(c)3, and all donations are tax-deductible in the U.S. You can make a one time donation or become a member to receive cool perks like discounts for our courses and events, access to our bi-monthly writer’s encouragement letter, yearly anthology, and more!
The A.C. Bose Grant is Open Now!
Award: $1000 USD
Submissions: Jan 1 - Jan 31, 2026
Winner Announced: March 2026
In 2019, the Speculative Literature Foundation and DesiLit co-sponsored the A.C. Bose Grant in memory of Ashim Chandra Bose, a lover of books—especially science fiction and fantasy. Bose’s children, Rupa Bose and Gautam Bose, founded the grant to honor the legacy of the worlds their father opened up for them. The donors hope that this grant will help develop work that will let young people imagine different worlds and possibilities.
Video Playlist from November Deep Dish Uploaded
Check out our readers from our Deep Dish reading event this past November! Our featured readers were Jay Bonansinga and Eiren Caffall, with rapid-fire readers Tina L. Jens, Eliza Sullivan, Angeli Primlani, Rory Leahy, Sullivan Peterson-Quinn, Connor Nevitt, and Benjamin K. Herrington.
Ep. 71 of MRAH Out Now: "Return to Turkey City"
In this episode, Mary Anne and Benjamin alternately praise, bristle at, relativize, invert, defend, and kvetch about the ancient writing norms of the Turkey City Lexicon.
New Portolan Project Addition: K. Tempest Bradford
“They were essentially recreating the day [September 11th] because they started at whatever time in the morning everything kicked off…and I was like whoa, y’all are doing some heavy ritual magic here. So, I started thinking about that and I started thinking about ways to get into that, the thinking around rituals around death and how we deal with it, especially when it’s a mass death event…”
– K. Tempest Bradford
We recently charted an interview we had with Bradford, an award-winning teacher and media critic who writes speculative fiction steeped in Black Girl Magic. She’s the author of the Nebula nominated Ruby Finley vs. the Interstellar Invasion and over a dozen short stories.
Check out our Deep Dive with Bradford on ritual magic, grief, memory, structure, travel research, and more.
Deep Dish Monthly Spotlight: Richard Chwedyk
Chicago born and bred, Richard Chwedyk won a Nebula Award in 2002 for his novella, Bronte’s Egg, and has been nominated for the Hugo, Sturgeon, and Rhysling awards. He’s best known for his “saur” stories, about a group of bioengineered dinosaurs, sold as toys but abandoned and living in a sort of shelter home. Currently, he’s a moving target in the ever-changing, ever-shrinking academic environment at Columbia College Chicago, teaching creative writing, fantasy writing, and Tolkien. Like most science fiction writers, he is “mostly harmless,” but approach with caution.
Our Latest Blog Posts
SLF’s 2025 Diversity Grants Shortlist
Here is our shortlist for our 2025 Diversity Grants! All of these talented writers were hand-selected by our jurors to be a finalist.
Announcing the Winner of the 2025 Diverse Worlds Grant
Announcing the Winner of the 2025 Diverse Worlds Grant The Speculative Literature Foundation is pleased to announce that Craig Noles is the winner of the
Donate
Our mission is to promote literary quality in speculative fiction through our grants, programming, and more.
The SLF is made possible by the kind contributions of those who believe in our mission—people like you. We’re a 501(c)3, and all donations are tax-deductible in the U.S.
For gifts over $1,000, gifts of stock, or to explore funding a grant, please contact our Development Director, Sue Bedry, and she’ll be happy to assist you. We encourage you to apply for matching funds from your employer if possible!
SLF Newsletter
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