| Publisher: | Diane Walton, Managing Editor |
| Frequency: | Quarterly |
| Category: | science fiction, fantasy |
| Founded: | 1989 |
| Country: | Canada |
| Based: | Edmonton, Alberta |
On Spec[1] is a digest-sized, perfect-bound, Canadian quarterly magazine publishing stories and poetry in science fiction, fantasy, and allied genres broadly grouped under the "speculative fiction" umbrella.
Based in Edmonton, Alberta,[2] On Spec was founded in 1989 by a small group of Edmonton writers who joined together to form The Copper Pig Writers Society.[3] At the time, there was no paying market for English speculative fiction in Canada (though paying markets in French did exist). On Spec is Canada's longest-running, and according to author Robert J. Sawyer, most successful, English-language magazine in the field.[4]
Much more like a traditional small literary magazine than the mass-market-styled American science fiction digests such as Analog and Asimov's, On Spec was founded to address the frustration that English-speaking Canadian SF writers faced having to "Americanize" their stories for the existing US markets.[5]