Abstract: All it was (he said for the thousandth time), was a plateau time for speculative fiction. A new generation of writers needed fresher ways to tell more relevant stories, and without benefit of salon, left bank, coffee house or writers' colony, individual talents of all ages, several sexes, many different backgrounds and disciplines caused a self-fulfilling prophecy. They caused to be created forums in which they could do what they longed to do. That it happened almost at the same time on both sides of the Atlantic, with over a hundred different writers--many of whom had no connection with their sf brothers and sisters--should be proof enough to even the most concretized of sf's observers.