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 Read More chevron_right

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 chevron_left Read Less