DreamCasters Agenda,
July 2023

07-09-2023

Opening Statement

Welcome to DreamCasters, a DreamForge discussion group devoted to helping our members improve their writing and storytelling through discussion and sharing expertise.

DreamForge News

Tentative Dates for 2023

July 9 | Aug 6 | Sept 2 (Saturday) | Oct 8 | Nov 5 | Dec 3

Pete Lead

Pete Lead got his first acceptance on July 1. A flash piece at The Dread Machine.

“There are Seventeen Kinds of Smile”, advice to a newborn android on how to pass as human.

Candice R. Lisle

Congratulations also to Candice R. Lisle, whose humorous time travel quick read “Bloodlines” is available on Kindle Unlimited. https://amzn.to/3Uf7Eat

Alicia Hilton

Alicia co-edited Back 2 OmniPark, an anthology of never-before-seen stories from some of the biggest names in horror and science fiction: Jonathan Maberry, Laird Barron, Hailey Piper, Kristi DeMeester, Brian Evenson, Gwendolyn Kiste, John Wiswell, A.C. Wise, John Palisano, Angela Yuriko Smith, Jess Bullington, Brent Winter, Brad Kelly, and Maxwell Ian Gold.

Government Conspiracies! Dimensional Portals! A Haunted House! Sentient Fungi! Time Travel! Monsters! Aliens! Discover all these and more in 17 horror stories about the world’s weirdest theme park. The Back 2 OmniPark Kickstarter campaign launched on June 15th. If the stretch goal is reached, we will have an open submissions call for all authors and buy more stories. To order the anthology and other OmniPark perks, please visit the Kickstarter campaign: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/writingben/back-2-omnipark-a-horror-anthology?fbclid=IwAR2oTm9TMCOj9uye_QNn_QI7bHhrF8faWHP3ZdCt4eJ6I2JhcypSplOy3R8&ref=2twqut&token=baa4dbf3

Alicia’s Award news:

Alicia’s poem “Ode to Harriet” has been nominated for the 2023 SFPA Dwarf Stars Award. “Ode to Harriet” explores connections between nature and dreams. The poem was published in AvantAppal(achia) Issue 12.

Alicia’s poem “My Avian Daughter Devours Meteors” has been nominated for the 2023 Rhysling Award. “My Avian Daughter Devours Meteors” blends fantasy, horror, and science fiction to tell a strange tale about mothering a monster. The poem was published in  Ornithologiae from Egaeus Press.

Other recent publications: So far, Alicia has sold 22 poems and 3 stories in 2023. For more information about her writing, visit her website, https://aliciahilton.com/writing/

Wulf Moon

David Hankins and I both have stories in GAME ON!, a SFWA approved anthology by Joshua Palmatier’s Zombies Need Brains LLC. It’s now available for preorder in e-book and trade paperback, and will be published July 15^th, 2023. Some big names in this one, like Cat Rambo and Sean Williams. It can be ordered at:

Kindle: https://amzn.to/3Px4EWy

Barnes & Noble: https://www.barnesandnoble.com/…/game-on…/1143551652…

Kobo: https://www.kobo.com/us/en/ebook/game-on-115

ZNB online store: https://zombies-need-brains-llc.square.site

In other news, I was notified I made it into the top twelve in the 2023 Story Unlikely’s Annual Short Story Contest. I didn’t make it into the top three winner slots, alas, but I was among the nine HMs. I’ll take making it into the top 12 out of 927 entries in this pro-rate market as a win.

Our Program

Our Guest in July is Jane Lindskold.

Jane Lindskold is the award-winning, New York Times best-selling author of over eighty short stories and more than thirty novels, including the eight-volume Firekeeper Saga (aka “The Wolf Books”), the two athanor novels (Changer and Changer’s Daughter), the three volumes of the Breaking the Wall series, the Artemis Awakening series, and many more. Lindskold has also written in collaboration with David Weber (Fire Season, Treecat Wars, and A New Clan) and Roger Zelazny (Donnerjack and Lord Demon).

Jane’s latest series is the new Over Where Series: Library of the Sapphire Wind,  Aurora Borealis Bridge, and House of Rough Diamonds (coming out on September 5^th)

Not everyone is comfortable building stories by fitting pieces into a plot structure. Jane is going to talk with us about storytelling without by-the-numbers structures and using logical progressions – how each story decision you make creates logical limitations for the rest of the story, as well as opportunities.

As the author notes on her website, “I like the freedom of building believable societies and characters. It’s the closest to creating myths and legends—the road that led me to SF and fantasy a long time ago—that I’ll ever have.”

SciFidea Award – Dyson Spheres

We’ll take a moment and see how people are progressing with about the Singapore based writing contest. As of this writing I’m right on track to have a submission. Whether the entry is a success or not, I’m most pleased with having fallen into a habit of writing 350 words a day and how, if I keep that habit after the contest, I could write over 100,000 words a year in stories or a novel.

Reminder, there are ten $20,000 prizes. Deadline is August 31^st, and you can submit entries to scifidea_contest@col.com.  | https://contest.scifidea.org/

Judges include Neil Clarke, Patrick Neilsen Hayden, Robert J. Sawyer, and Michael Swanwick.

Giveaway This Month!

One lucky attendee chosen at random will receive a copy of House of Rough Diamonds, Over Where Book 3, by Jane Lindskold when it comes out in September!

In August

Our Guest in August month is Bruce McAllister. Bruce’s literary and genre fiction has appeared in national magazines, literary quarterlies, college textbooks and ‘year’s best’ anthologies. His second novel, Dream Baby, a National Endowment for the Arts fellowship winner, was called a “stunning tour de force” by Publishers Weekly.

At Bruce McAllister Coaching, Bruce has been a writing coach and consultant on a wide range of popular books for major and smaller publishers and scientific books published by scholarly presses, including Pulitzer and National Book Award nominees; and a facilitator of autobiography and memoir workshops.

Attend the meeting for some cool Story Prompts!