Mark Rich is a poet, fiction writer, editor, and biographer best known for his foundational role in speculative poetry. He coined the term in the mid-1970s and co-founded The Magazine of Speculative Poetry in 1984. Beyond his foundational influence on the genre, Rich is a prolific short story writer featured in magazines like Analog and Amazing Stories, a cultural historian of vintage toys, and the author of the definitive critical biography C.M. Kornbluth: The Life and Works of a Science Fiction Visionary. It watched above the village, long ago — this winged thing, scaled and blistering of breath, its eyes