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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 Diverse Writers and Diverse Worlds Grants are Open for Submissions!
Award: $500 USD Each
Submissions: July 1 - July 31, 2025
Winners Announced: September 28, 2025
Since 2014, the SLF has offered two diversity-centered grants intended to foster the creation of speculative fiction work rich in diversity. Writers may apply for either or both grants.
Deep Dish Weekly Spotlight: Eiren Caffall
Eiren Caffall is a writer and musician. Her work on loss, oceans, and extinction has appeared in Orion, Writer’s Digest, Guernica, The Los Angeles Review of Books, Literary Hub, Al Jazeera, The Rumpus, and the anthology Elementals: Volume IV. Fire, forthcoming in 2024 from The Center for Humans and Nature. She received a 2023 Whiting Award in Creative Nonfiction, a Social Justice News Nexus fellowship, and residencies at the Banff Centre, Millay Colony, Hedgebrook, and Ragdale. Her books include her memoir The Mourner’s Bestiary (Row House Publishing, 2024) and her novel All the Water in the World (St. Martin’s Press, 2025).
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. 63 of MRAH Out Now: "OKPsyche with Anya Johanna DeNiro"
Joining Mary Anne and Ben on this episode is Anya Johanna DeNiro, a trans woman and writer who recently published her novel, OKPsyche. The book follows the story of an unnamed trans woman on an epic journey to find the place where she belongs. Mary Anne and Ben discuss DeNiro’s inspirations for OkPsyche, its genre-bending elements, and the second-person POV.
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.
Our Latest Blog Posts
SLF’s 2024 Gulliver’s Travel Grant Shortlist
Here is our shortlist for our 2024 Gulliver’s Travel Grant! Each of these talented writers were selected by one of our jurors to be a
November 2024 Deep Dish Readings Uploaded
Our featured and rapid-fire readings from our November 2024 Deep Dish event have been uploaded! Make sure you subscribe to us on YouTube so you
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!
If you’d prefer not to use PayPal, we can also accept donations through our local community foundation.
SLF Newsletter
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