Reading Science and Speculative Literature Politically – Spring 2026 Edition

Alternate Mondays, Next on February 16, 5-6:30 pm ET

Join us to sample exciting new short fiction and non-fiction to assess the state of socially-conscious, political speculative fiction today. Speculative fiction, reborn from traditional science fiction, and also known by its alter ego visionary fiction and other its other identities, including horror, more than ever offers space for exploration of class, race, gender, freedom struggles and authoritarian repression. We read it to envision the futures we seek and empower  our commitments, enliven our reflection, and energize our communities.

This spring, we take a step back to sample authors, stories and essays from three new and recent collections:

• We Will Rise Again: Speculative Stories and Essays on Protest, Resistance, and Hope, edited by Malka Older, Annalee Newitz and Karen Lord
• Palestine + 100: Stories from a Century after the Nakba, Edited by Basma Ghalayini
• Stepford’s Daughters: Weapons for Feminists in Contemporary Horror, by Johanna Isaacson

We also have a short list of longer fiction to select a next novel or two from, based on these discussions:

• Annie Bot, Sierra Greer
• Simultaneous, Eric Heisserer
• All That We See or Seem, Ken Liu
• School for Good Mothers, Jessamine Chan
• Marriages between Zones Three, Four, and Five, Doris Lessing
• In Universes, Emet North
• Unworld, Jayson Greene
• Sublimation, Isabel Kim
• Planetfall, Emma Newman
• The Country of Ice Cream Star, Sandra Newman

No matter how hard or easy you find it to visualize a just future, we encourage you to give a try to the MEP’s long-running speculative literature reading group. Convened by the Speculative Fiction Reading Group.