Our Illustrious President announces that the next R-SPEC meeting is March 3, at 7pm, at the Pittsford Barnes and Noble. Here is the text of her announcement:
We had originally scheduled a meeting to discuss the anthology, thinking that it would be in print by now, but there have been delays, so there has been a change in plans.
One of the most frequent requests I have had from people outside of our group has been for our recommendations for spec lit reading. The diverse genres encompassed by spec lit and the large number of good works available have made the request hard for me to answer except with the latest books that I enjoyed (Ian MacDonald's River of Gods, Yiddish Policemen, anything by Neil Gaiman or Greg Egan).
So this month, we'll discuss what titles we'd put into a list of recommendations for those who think they're unfamiliar with spec lit. We've made a few starts at this as a regular thread on the email lists, but it would be fun to pull together a list in a single discussion and post it on our website. We won't get into rankings, which would be difficult to agree on, just a non-numbered collection of the good stuff. This would be subject to periodic revision as we add new treasures.
Bring your favorite works and read a short exerpt from one to the group. Tell us why it should be recommended by R-SPEC. I'll bring River of Gods, but it'll be tough to limit myself to one passage!
Also, from discussions at the Annual Meeting came a desire for more active participation in our regular meetings, so we're going to change the format a bit, getting started earlier on our topic of the meeting and reserving the final half hour for a Spec Slam. In this portion of the meeting, we'd invite anyone present to read aloud a short piece they've written (1000 words or less) or a short excerpt from something longer. We'll discuss it in general terms, not a line-by-line critique. You could also bring in an outstanding bit of spec lit of someone else's that you want to share. We can add it to the list we'll start on March 3rd.
