After extensively researching forgotten journals and magazines of the early 19th century I was able to locate groundbreaking science fiction short stories in the English language. In doing so, I uncovered what is possibly the first science fiction story by a female (and it is not from Mary Shelley). There is also the first steampunk short story, which has not been republished since 1844. Oh, and the first voyage to the moon in a balloon, republished for the first time since 1820 that further...

I recently attended "The Mirror Crack'd" play at the Asolo Repertory Theatre in beautiful Sarasota, Florida. The acting was top-notch and the set was exemplary, both of which the denizens of Sarasota have come to expect from the Asolo. "The Mirror Crack'd" is originally Agatha Christie's classic Miss Marple mystery novel, originally published in 1962 in the UK as The Mirror Crack'd from Side to Side (and in the US as The Mirror Crack'd ). The title draws from Alfred Lord Tennyson's poem...

Edgar Allan Poe (1809-1849) wrote scary stories in a number of supernatural genres. He did not invent the horror short story, but he took it to unbelievable heights as he did with science fiction stories. Poe penned ghost stories, too. He was the first to invent a closed room murder mystery (The Murders in the Rue Morgue of 1841) and a founding father of science fiction short stories. Poe also was the first to take us inside the head of a crazy man in The Tell-Tale Heart of 1843. Yet Edgar...