Panel Discussion: Speculative Writing, with Robert Repino, Andrew Uzendoski, and Steve Wiggins

Join authors Robert Repino, Andrew Uzendoski, and Steve Wiggins for a conversation on speculative writing—a literary genre that breaks the typical realism barriers of science fiction, horror, fantasy, or historical fiction to allow for unlimited possibilities and poses questions of what might have been or could be.

Robert Repino grew up in Drexel Hill, Pennsylvania. After serving in the Peace Corps, he earned an MFA in Creative Writing from Emerson College. His fiction includes short stories in The Literary Review and Hobart, as well as the middle-grade series Spark and the League of Ursus. He lives in New York and works as an editor for Oxford University Press. Malefactor concludes the War with No Name series and follows the novels D’Arc and Mort(e) and the novella Culdesac.

From Steve A. Wiggins

Like most authors, I have a full-time job that neither persuades nor dissuades my writing. My first two books were academic, but the books after that are for general readers.

I am an independent scholar (unemployed professor) who is currently an editor with a university press in New York City. I taught for many years between the following institutions: Nashotah House Episcopal Seminary, the University of Wisconsin Oshkosh, Rutgers University, and Montclair State University. I earned my doctorate in the History of Religions, specializing in Ancient Near Eastern studies, at Edinburgh University in 1992. I write a blog with new posts daily—check it out at steveawiggins.com.

My first book, A Reassessment of Asherah, was based on my dissertation. The second edition remains in print.

Weathering the Psalms was written while I was teaching at Nashotah House, based on an idea that came to me while reciting the Psalter in required chapel services during a thunderstorm. It’s a pretty academic title, published by Cascade Books.

Holy Horror, published by McFarland, is intended for general readers, with no technical vocab in sight! It’s about the way the Bible appears in horror films.

Nightmares with the Bible, a book about demons in movies, was published by Lexington/Fortress Academic. It’s not a technical book at all, it’s just priced like one.

I’m glad to connect with like-minded individuals on Goodreads, Academia.edu, or Twitter (@stawiggins). My YouTube channel has short videos on the books as well.

Andrew Uzendoski is Visiting Assistant Professor of English at Lafayette College.