June | DreamCasters Agenda | 06/05/22

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 –  5 min

GUEST

Our Guest today is Donald Firesmith, the author of the 4 book Hell Hole series. I’ve started reading the first one Hell Holes, What Lurks Below. So far, I can see that Donald uses the realism and accuracy of his science to engage the reader. The science knowledge detail and how his characters interact with what is happening and try to understand it is attention grabbing.

Guest – HellHole Author Donald Firesmith <donfiresmith@gmail.com>

DreamForge Kickstarter

Our DreamForge Kickstarter launched on May 15^th and continues until June 13^th. We are already fully funded!  Our stretch goal is to earn another $2,000. At that point we will permanently raise our pay for original fiction to $0.07/word.

Candice R. Lisle

Candice has signed a contract with Martian Magazine for my latest drabble. I am hoping it will be published in their next issue. A drabble is very challenging since it has to be exactly 100 words, no more and no less, and still tell a complete story. It came from a 250-word flash I wrote a couple of years ago in Wulf Moon’s Super Secrets Workshop.

After the Goldrush

The After The Goldrush anthology from Third Flatiron publishing is coming out in July, and it has stories by Angelique Fawns, Daniel Cojocaru, and Wulf Moon. A number of Moon’s Wulf Pack are I the anthology, and we’re looking forward to it.

Writers of the Future

First Quarter 2022.  Honorable Mention to Daniel M. Cojocaru, Crystal Crawford, Angelique Fawns, Henry Gasko, Alicia Hilton, Akis Linardos, Jan Nerenberg, and Scott M. Sands.  Silver Honorable Mention Candice Lisle.

Submission Period

We’re working toward another submission period in late summer/early fall.  I’ll be looking for Solar Punk and Hope Punk stories. But that’s not exclusive; I invite all of you to continue to polish your stories even after the contest and submit them as well.

I’d like to see some stories about capturing the sun’s power in space to run a civilization much larger than the one we have now.

DreamCaster Guest Donald Firesmith – 40 minutes

Donald Firesmith is a multi-award-winning author of speculative fiction including science fiction (alien invasion), fantasy (magical wands), and modern urban paranormal novels.

Prior to retiring to devote himself full-time to his novels, Donald Firesmith earned an international reputation as a distinguished engineer, authoring seven system and software engineering books based on his 40+ years spent developing large, complex software-intensive systems.

He lives in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania with his wife Becky, his son Dane, and varying numbers of dogs and cats.

Today Donald will be talking to us about using science in science fiction stories.

• Author Website: http://donaldfiresmith.com
• Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Donald_Firesmith
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/don.firesmith
• Twitter: https://twitter.com/DonFiresmith

The Great DreamCaster Bakeoff – 15 minutes

Let’s talk about DreamCaster’s latest submissions. We’re looking forward to seeing your adding Conflict 1 and Conflict 2 to your writing challenge stories.

The Submissions area in the Portal is Ready for the Next Wave.

Give Aways! 5 minutes

By random dice roll, we will give away two prizes. First is a copy Galaxy’s Edge # 56, with the story “Eyes and Hands” by DreamCaster Candice R. Lisle.

Second is a copy of the Worlds of Light and Darkness anthology containing some of the best DreamForge and Space & Time stories.

Story Prompts –  5 minutes

We’ll give out a couple story prompts that might be interesting to explore.

Meeting Ends.  Thank You All!

In July

For July, we’re going to spend the entire meeting talking about DreamCaster Bakeoff stories, including strengths and weaknesses we’re seeing and how to add your climax, complete your stories, and prepare for the end of the contest and polishing these stories for final submission.