DreamCasters Agenda,
NOVEMBER 2025

11-01-2025 | 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

Here are the dates and guests for upcoming meetings

• November 1  (Saturday) – Alan Irvine, Storyteller. Alan is an oral storyteller who will clue is in to story elements that help bring tales alive.
• December 7^th (Sunday) – Award Winning writer and writing coach Bruce McAllister returns to discuss “the shape of the story.”
• January 4^th (Sunday) – Three Page Challenge. Bring the first three pages of any short story in progress and Scot will speed-critique them from the editor’s point of view. Stories selected by dice roll until we run out of time or run out of stories.

Member News

From Ana Sun, DreamCaster and DreamForge Author – “My short story collection Futures to Live By has just been published by Newcon Press in the UK, released in September, 2025. The editor loved Dandelion Brew and I just want to thank you again for your coaching that enabled me to write that story, and for publishing it. For the collection, I revised Dandelion Brew to bring the prose more in line with my more recent stories, though the story remained much the same.

DreamForge News

We are open for submissions in November and December – https://dreamforgemagazine.com/for-authors/call-for-submissions/

Our Program – Alan Irvine, Storyteller

November 1  (Sunday) – Alan Irvine (https://alanirvine.com/) has the stories you want to hear! With a repertoire of hundreds of stories from around the globe, Storyteller Alan Irvine can weave a program to fit any audience – whether it is ghost stories for Halloween, Summer Reading Club programs for libraries, School assemblies, Shakespeare, Pennsylvania & Pittsburgh history, and more.

Check out one of Alan’s stories on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VB2-u0l9uqw

“Alan is one of those rare, all-around tellers  who tell tales of all kinds with seamless ease and warmth.”
-Mary Morgan Smith, producer
Three Rivers Storytelling Festival

“Irvine has a powerful, hypnotic voice that irresistibly draws listeners into the stories.”
-Larry Cooperman,
School Library Journal

Giveaway This Month!

To one of our DreamCasters in attendance, we have a DreamForge mouse pad comprised of a variety of colorful DreamForge cover art, along with a copy of “Publishing 101.” Experienced editor and publisher Jane Friedman offers insights from more than 15 years of working on both sides of the desk. Whether you’ve finished your manuscript or just have the seeds of a book idea, Publishing 101 shows you how to approach editors and agents with your work, while avoiding the common pitfalls of first-time authorship.

In December

December 7th (Sunday) – We welcome back Award-Winning writer and writing coach Bruce McAllister to discuss “the shape of the story.”

Bruce McAllister is an author of fantasy, science fiction, poetry, and non-fiction. Over the years his short stories have been published in the major fantasy and science fiction magazines, theme anthologies, college readers, and “year’s best” anthologies, including Best American Short Stories 2007, guest-edited by Stephen King.

Story Prompts

Science Fiction— “Memory Gardeners”

“Memory Gardeners” help trauma victims reshape their memories. This isn’t just erasing memories, but about trying to turn PTSD into wisdom, grief into compassion, fear into courage. The system works by having trained empaths use new technology to literally experience a patient’s memory with them and help them reshape it through shared consciousness.

The protagonist is a Memory Gardener who specializes in helping veterans, abuse survivors, and refugees. They discover that when you reshape traumatic memories, you also reshape the person’s motivations. A refugee who loses the sharp edges of their trauma also loses their drive to fight for other refugees. A veteran whose combat trauma is soothed no longer feels compelled to prevent war. The story explores whether trauma is sometimes necessary fuel for positive change, the difference between healing and numbing, and whether we have the right to make ourselves comfortable if it means we stop fighting for others.

Fantasy— “The Discord Mage”

Imagine a world where the magic system works best when coordinated groups work in harmony in order to cast spells. The better their training and cooperation, the better the spell works. Then there are discord mages, single individuals whose developed talent is to infiltrate a specific casting group and disrupt their magic without being found out.

The protagonist is a discord mage under the patroonship of a prince. The discord mage begins to doubt their mission when they realize that success will bring yet another community under the sway of the demanding prince.

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.