For most of us, these prizewinning spelling bee words would be difficult to pronounce, let alone spell. We asked twenty-one of today’s most talented and inventive writers to go even further and pen an original tale inspired by one of dozens of obscure and fascinating championship words. The result is Logorrhea—a veritable dictionary of the weird, the fantastic, the haunting, and the indefinable that will have you spellbound from the very first page.
Including twenty-one stories and the inscrutable words that inspired them:
Chiaroscuro: “The Chiaroscurist” by Hal Duncan
Lyceum: “Lyceum” by Liz Williams
Vivisepulture: “Vivisepulture” by David Prill
Eczema: “Eczema” by Clare Dudman
Sacrilege, Semaphore: “Semaphore” by Alex Irvine
Smaragdine: “The Smaragdine Knot” by Marly Youmans
Insouciant: “A Portrait in Ivory” by Michael Moorcock
Cambist: “The Cambist and Lord Iron: A Fairy Tale of Economics” by Daniel Abraham
Logorrhea: “Logorrhea” by Michelle Richmond
Pococurante: “Pococurante” by Anna Tambour
Autochthonous: “From Around Here” by Tim Pratt
Vignette: “Vignette” by Elizabeth Hand
Sycophant: “Plight of the Sycophant” by Alan DeNiro
Elegiacal: “The Last Elegy” by Matthew Cheney
Eudaemonic: “Eudaemonic” by Jay Caselberg
Macerate: “Softer” by Paolo Bacigalupi
Transept: “Crossing the Seven” by Jay Lake
Psoriasis: “Tsuris” by Leslie What
Euonym: “The Euonymist” by Neil Williamson
Dulcimer: “Singing of Mount Abora” by Theodora Goss
Appoggiatura: “Appoggiatura” by Jeff VanderMeer
“This book is a logophile’s dream—a left-field collection of stories inspired by winning words from the Scripps National Spelling Bee. Anyone who has ever spent an hour or two happily browsing the pages of a dictionary will find something to love here.”—Kevin Brockmeier, author of A Brief History of the Dead
Author
Jeff VanderMeer
NYT bestselling writer Jeff VanderMeer has been called “the weird Thoreau” by the New Yorker for his engagement with ecological issues. His most recent novel, the national bestseller Borne, received wide-spread critical acclaim and has been added to the National Endowment for the Arts prestigious Big Reads program. His prior novels include the Southern Reach trilogy (Annihilation, Authority, and Acceptance). Annihilation won the Nebula and Shirley Jackson Awards, has been translated into 35 languages, and was made into a film from Paramount Pictures directed by Alex Garland. His nonfiction has appeared in New York Times, the Los Angeles Times, the Atlantic, Slate, Salon, and the Washington Post. He has coedited several iconic anthologies with his wife, the Hugo Award winning editor. Other titles include Wonderbook, the world’s first fully illustrated creative writing guide. VanderMeer served as the 2016-2017 Trias Writer in Residence at Hobart and William Smith Colleges. He has spoken at the Guggenheim, the Library of Congress, and the Arthur C. Clarke Center for the Human Imagination.
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Elizabeth Hand
Elizabeth Hand (www.elizabethhand.com) is the award-winning author of many novels for adults, as well as a widely published reviewer. She lives in Lincolnville, Maine.
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Michael Moorcock
Michael John Moorcock (born 1939) is a prolific British writer primarily of science fiction and science fantasy who has also published a number of literary novels. His most popular works by far have been the Elric novels. As editor of the controversial British science fiction magazine New Worlds, Moorcock fostered the development of the New Wave in the UK and indirectly in the U.S. He won the Nebula Award for his novella Behold the Man,which tells the story of a time traveler who takes on the role of Christ. He has also won the World Fantasy Award, the British Fantasy Award, and many others, and in 2008 was named a Grand Master by the Science Fiction Writers of America.
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Liz Williams
Liz Williams is based in Glastonbury, England, where she is codirector of a witchcraft supply business. She has a PhD from Cambridge in the history and philosophy of science. Her books include Miracles of Our Own Making: A History of Paganism and Modern Handfasting: A Complete Guide to the Magic of Pagan Weddings.
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