I’m super-excited about what’s happening at the Speculative Literature Foundation in 2020; for one, we have two new interns who’ve joined us this semester from UIC, Darius and Emmanuel, both aspiring SF writers and avid SF/F fans. It’s going to be terrific to have them on board.
We had a great long meeting on Friday, orienting them to the SLF and what we’re hoping to do with:
• the Portolan Project (free online creative writing instruction for all!)
• local chapters (first SLF Chicagoland chapter meeting at my house, Sun 2/16, woot!) — book club? critique group? board game nights? movie outings? bringing in agents and editors to speak? Come join us and help shape the chapter!
• the Deep Dish reading series (next reading Sat 3/14, and if Volumes Bookcafe is up for it, it’s also going to be a launch party for Feast, woohoo, so mark your calendars, locals, as I will have tasty, tasty treats for you there)
• writing workshops in Oak Park, in partnership with Maram Makerspace, including one upcoming Saturday July 25th, again, mark your calendars — we’re hoping to expand those to a 10-day workshop in 2021, and quite possibly a 6-week workshop down the road. (Clarion Midwest? We’ll see.)
• and more! (But wait, there’s more…)
Tomorrow, Darius and Emmanuel are going to come join me and Managing Director Karen for our Monday afternoon SLF work meeting, and we’ll figure out exactly what they’ll be working on first. Over the weekend, I’ve asked them to learn more about the other writing workshops in the field — I told them about Clarion, Odyssey, and Viable Paradise. Which other workshops should I set them to researching, do you think?
And hey — after about a month mostly off, I’m back in fundraising mode for the SLF, so you’re going to start hearing more about that. Most of why we’re able to actually do all this is that we raised enough funds to hire some part-time staff to help us out, and that’s all coming from memberships — we’re up to $510 / month!
(We have a real bookkeeper now. It’s very exciting.)
Can you help us get to liftoff? Our winter fund drive goal is $625 / month — we’re almost there! We’d love to have you join us as a member, for just $2 / month. We’re planning to give back some great resources to the community as we grow! It’s going to be fun. 
Join the SLF here! http://speculativeliterature.org/membership/
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