Austlit

The Speculations research project, established in 2011, is a substantial study of Australian popular fiction. The research – which defines speculative fiction as including science fiction, horror, and fantasy – is focused on expanding the recognition of the important place 'popular' fiction has in Australian storytelling culture. It includes some young adult material.

Speculations is concerned with:

• Mapping horror, fantasy, and science-fiction publication in Australia from early and imported influences to the contemporary
• Digitising historical works of speculative fiction and creating a searchable and downloadable corpus for text mining as well as providing high quality digital reproductions of rare and early works for reading
• Engaging with interested parties across the whole community to increase AustLit's coverage of fantasy, horror, and science fiction in both print and other narrative forms such as television and film.

The Speculations project has generated large amounts of bibliographical, biographical, and historical data on the works, authors, and publishers of genre publications, thereby redressing the lack of scholarly resources for and about Australian speculative fiction.

We welcome your participation. Please contact us to find out about contributing to the Speculations project.

Data Enhancement Goals

AustLit's data enhancement goals for this project were, initially, to:

• Ensure the inclusion of bibliographic records for Australian science fiction, horror, and fantasy novels. attempting to record the often complex publishing history of these works
• Research and note the activities of publishers engaged with these genres
• Establish and note relationships between publishers, authors, scholars, and critics.
• Establish the conditions to enable community participation in the project