Every Tuesday, get to know a bit about the stories behind the books you love, and discover your next favourite novel.

Zilla: As someone who thinks far too deeply about the science fiction and fantasy she reads, nothing could be better than a journal of essays about exactly that. Today, instead of an author, we bring in the editor and publisher Alexandra Pierce to talk about Speculative Insight: a journal of space, magic and footnotes. Alexandra, what do you do?

Alexandra: I like to say I pay smart people to write clever essays about interesting science fiction and fantasy topics! We publish two essays a month online – one is free to read, the other is available to subscribers. Subscribers also get 6-monthly ebooks compiling the previous 12 essays, plus a bonus. (I’m also an historian; I’m not sure which one is my ‘main’ focus these days …)

Zilla : What inspired you to start this journal?

Alexandra: I co-edited two non-fiction anthologies (Letters to Tiptree, and Luminescent Threads: Connections to Ocatvia E. Butler) a few years ago. When I left teaching and was thinking about what things I might do instead, I was reflecting on how much I enjoyed putting together those anthologies … and realised that a journal would do a similar thing, but without the need to get everything done at exactly the same time. Once I had searched, “Who is allowed to start up a journal?” (true story; turns out there’s no answer online because the answer is “whoever is silly enough to want to do so”), I went from there. 

Zilla : What research did you do before starting your business?

Alexandra: I researched the functional, business side a fair bit … and also read up on a bunch of people who are writing really interesting nonfiction about SFF, as people who I hoped would want to write for the journal. 

Zilla : Who are your readers?

Alexandra: My hopes were and are that people who are interested in interrogating their literature would be the audience for the journal. While many of the essays are about a particular book or set of books, the intention is that they will deal with some topic that is applicable across other books too. So the essay about families of the future refers specifically to four books, but I think a reader could make connections to lots of others; same with the essay about whether Robin McKinley’s Deerskin counts as a “cosy fantasy”, for example. 

Zilla : And for my penultimate question, one about you. You must have plenty of speculative fiction loves. Who is your favourite fictional character?

Alexandra: Probably my two favourites are Cheris, from Yoon Ha Lee’s Machinery of Empire series, and Breq, from Ann Leckie’s Ancillary Justice trilogy. I am a huge fan of space opera, so both of these series have been near-annual re-reads for me for several years now. Cheris is a very complicated character for a whole range of reasons, and has done terrible things for (probably) good reasons. Breq is literally a fraction of who she used to be, and is making the most of a terrible situation. Both have an excellent line in snark, too. 

Zilla : Thanks for sharing your story and your process. We’re looking forward to reading! Where can the Night Beats community find you and your journal?

Alexandra: I’m on Bluesky @speculativeinsight.bsky.social and Instagram @speculativeinsight. Speculative Insight: a journal of space, magic and footnotes is here.