Tiffani Angus (Ph.D.) and Val Nolan (Ph.D.) return for a third volume of the BSFA/BFS shortlisted and Locus Recommended writing-guide series Spec Fic for Newbies! Join them once more for a lightspeed adventure through the storytelling basics of another 30 subgenres and major tropes from across the myriad realities of Science Fiction, Fantasy, and Horror. It’s a voyage that’s perfect for students and for any budding writers.
Learn about writing Superheroes, Kaiju, Mad Scientists, Swashbuckling Fantasy, Elves, Alien Abductions, Magic Schools, Spy-Fi, Weird Fiction, and many more with deep dives into each subgenre’s history and development, “Spotter’s Guides” to typical examples of the forms, discussions of what's fun—and what to watch out for—when writing these topics, as well as activities to get people started! All derived from the authors’ combined twenty years of university teaching experiences.
Spec Fic for Newbies Volume III continues Angus and Nolan’s project of blowing the doors off the university classroom and allowing access to anyone who never had the opportunity to study these hugely popular genres with sympathetic instructors. As with the first two volumes, Spec Fic for Newbies III is structured as a welcoming and practical introduction to how writers, filmmakers, and other creatives can begin to explore the infinite potential of Science Fiction, Fantasy, and Horror. It is your invitation to create new stories beyond the boundaries of the ordinary!
Spec Fic for Newbies Vol 3 will be released in April 2026.
About the Authors
Tiffani Angus (PhD) is a multi BSFA- and BFS-award finalist for her 2020 debut novel Threading the Labyrinth and (as co-author with Val Nolan) Spec Fic for Newbies: A Beginner’s Guide to Writing Subgenres of Science Fiction, Fantasy, and Horror (2023), which also made the Locus Recommended Reading List. Spec Fic for Newbies Vol. 2 was released in 2024, and she has had several short stories published in a variety of subgenres. She spent over a decade teaching creative writing at universities in the US and UK, most of that time as a Senior Lecturer in Creative Writing and Publishing at ARU in Cambridge (UK). She now works as a freelance editor and proofreader for private clients and SFF publishing houses, runs the typesetting/formatting business Book Polishers, and is currently at work on a novel, a novella, a short-story collection, and another scandalous new project.
You can find her at www.tiffani-angus.com
Val Nolan (PhD) is the author of Neil Jordan: Works for the Page (UCC Press, 2022), co-author of the Spec Fic for Newbies series (Luna Press Publishing, 2023, 2024), and has published academic articles in Science Fiction Studies, Foundation, Journal of Graphic Novels and Comic Books, Irish University Review, symplokē, and elsewhere. His fiction has appeared in Year’s Best Science Fiction, Best of British Science Fiction, Unidentified Funny Objects, Andromeda Spaceways, ParSec, and Interzone (for which he also writes the ‘Folded Spaces’ column about the history of SF criticism). He has been shortlisted for the Theodore Sturgeon Award and twice been a finalist for the BSFA Awards. He is currently a research fellow at Aberystwyth University in Wales where he was awarded Lecturer of the Year in 2022.
Remember: you can buy the bundle at a discounted price! Click below!
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