DreamCasters Agenda,
May 2024

05-05-2024 | 1:00 pm ET via ZOOM

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

DreamCaster Dates for 2024

Here are the dates and guests for the next three months.

• June 1^st – Elizabeth Eve King, Metastellar Magazine and the serialization of Gods and Monsters
• July (6 or 7) Guest or writing exercises | TBD
• August 11^th (Sunday) – Award Winning SF and Fantasy Poet Mary Soon Lee

Member Accomplishments

David Hankins

Death and the Taxman, the novel-length expansion of my Writers of the Future V39 story, published on Tax Day (Apr 15th) and shot up to the #2 Humor New Release on Amazon.

“Death and the Taxman,” the original short story, reprinted in the literary magazine Story Unlikely on April 1st.

“Hell’s Bureaucracy” reprinted on April 26th in the anthology Dragon Gems (Spring 2024).

SciFidea Contest

Scot Noel & Brittany Rainsdon both placed in the Top 10 of the SciFidea contest out of Singapore for their Dyson Sphere themed novellas. Unfortunately, funding for the contest failed before it could deliver prizes. Even so, our novellas were declared winners in blind readings by an illustrious panel of judges, including: Neil Clarke, Pheonix Alexander, Patrick Nielsen Hayden, Nancy Kress, Derek Kunsken, Robert J. Sawyer, Michael Swanwick, Liza Groen Trombi.

The full DreamCaster gallery of published stories is online at Airtable. 

Let us know about any new publications, awards, or accomplishments you might have. If you get news to me at Scot.Noel@DreamForgeMagazine.com, I’ll make sure to mention it.

Our Program – Guest Scott Edelman

SCOTT EDELMAN has published nearly 100 short stories in magazines such as Analog, The Twilight Zone, Postscripts, Absolute Magnitude, Science Fiction Review and Fantasy Book, and in anthologies such as You, Human, The Solaris Book of New Science Fiction, Crossroads, MetaHorror, Once Upon a Galaxy, Moon Shots, Mars Probes, Forbidden Planets. His poetry has appeared in Asimov’s, Amazing, Dreams and Nightmares, and others.

And of course, Scott has had two stories in DreamForge and will soon have a third, “The Neighborly Thing to Do,” currently scheduled for a fall release. His story “Answered Prayers” also appeared in the DreamForge/Space & Time Anthology Worlds of Light and Darkness.

His most recent short story collection is Things That Never Happened, published September 2020 by Cemetery Dance. Of the book, Publishers Weekly wrote: “His talent is undeniable.”

Early in his career, Scott worked as an assistant editor for Marvel Comics starting in the early ’70s, writing everything from display copy for superhero Slurpee cups to the famous Bullpens Bulletins pages. While there, he edited the Marvel-produced fan magazine FOOM (Friend of Ol’ Marvel). He also wrote trade paperbacks such as The Captain Midnight Action Book of Sports, Health and Nutrition and The Mighty Marvel Fun Book number four and five.

This is another chance to learn, talk about, and ask about Horror writing!

https://www.scottedelman.com/wordpress/

Giveaway This Month!

This month one of our attending DreamCasters will win a paperback of “Things That Never Happened.” Eight-time Bram Stoker Award-nominated writer Scott Edelman’s stories have been called “utterly uncompromising,” “smooth and inviting, colorful and vivid,” and “horror writing at its best”—and after reading his new collection Things That Never Happened, you’ll come away agreeing his fiction is “captivating, alarming, astonishing.”

In June

On Saturday, June 1, Elizabeth Eve King (E.E. King) is our guest.

Elizabeth Eve King, a.k.a E.E. King, is an award-winning painter, performer, writer, and naturalist. She’ll do anything that won’t pay the bills, especially if it involves animals. Ray Bradbury called Elizabeth’s stories, “marvelously inventive, wildly funny, and deeply thought-provoking.”

E.E. King has been published in over 100 magazines and anthologies, including Clarkesworld, Daily Science Fiction, Chicken Soup for the Soul, Short Edition, and Flametree.  Her novels include Dirk Quigby’s Guide to the Afterlife: All you need to know to choose the right heaven, and several story collections. Her short story The Lost Village appeared in DreamForge in 2023 – https://bit.ly/the-lost-village-ee-king

Her art has been collected internationally.  Elizabeth has painted murals in California, Mexico, Spain, and Italy, and shown her paintings at the LA Contemporary Museum of Art.

Elizabeth also co-hosts The Long-Lost Friends Show on Metastellar YouTube and spends summers doing bird rescue and winters planting coral.

Elizabeth will talk with us about her new novel “Gods and Monsters,” being serialized at Metastellar Magazine. https://www.metastellar.com/   We’ll learn about the novel, Metastellar magazine, and E.E, King’s readings of each chapter on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL7LdNxnZtN4NewB9nH7XmjysFJf-O2bbF

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Story Prompts

Science Fiction— Imagine a future where mummified brains (found in archeological digs) from various ages and in various states of preservation and decay, have been brought back to consciousness in a virtual world as a “brain trust”- so that the modern world can learn about mental evolution, cultural norms, and such. They are isolated at first, but then they fight to form a community, comforting one another in the strange future to which they have awakened. https://www.npr.org/2024/03/23/1240461593/over-4-400-preserved-human-brains-have-been-discovered-across-the-world-study-fi

Fantasy— Imagine a haunting mystery of correspondence past. A small Pennsylvania town endures a flood due to increased rainfall from climate change. In one low-lying area, homes are swept away and dozens of bodies can’t be found. Afterward, letters begin to arrive as the town recovers and rebuilds. In our age, people aren’t used to hand-written letters, and these appear to be from the early 1900s, but as fresh as if they were written and stamped today. It is found they were written just before a flood in 1903 that ravaged the same area, taking the old Post Office with it. The letters are from those who were lost more than a century before… how can these letters bring solace and closure to both tragedies?

Disclaimer: These ideas may or may not be original, convergent ideas are common. DreamForge makes no copyright or monetary claim on these story prompts. Have fun.