DreamForge Anvil 4 Cover Reveal

and Table of Contents

DreamForge Anvil # 4 drops online in our Reader’s Portal on Sunday, August 15th. We’re proud to give you an advance peak at our beautiful new cover, and below you’ll find our Table of Contents.

Issue 4 of DreamForge Anvil – The Longing of Hope

Sometimes hope takes the form of a longing for things that could have been, a past that we cannot change, or the welcoming moment of the now that our heart knows will soon be lost but may one day come again.

Issue Details:

For Issue 04 of DreamForge Anvil, we start off with a poem by one of DreamForge’s most dedicated First Line Readers and the author of “Flight of the Brolga” in Issue 7, Henry Gasko. We also welcome Monica Joyce Evans, returning to our pages with a wonderful vignette of acceptance. J.L. Akagi challenges us to go beyond human relationships, and from J.M. Rhineheart, David Boffa, and Floris Kleijne, we experience the chance lost in the blink of an eye, the sweetness of young love, and the enduring grief of loss. Wulf Moon returns with writing advice, and our Hope Notes explore Hope vs. The Broken World – The Population Bomb.

Hope vs. The Broken World – The Population Bomb

Today, so many are convinced that the world is going to hell in a handbasket. Well, yesterday too. Except the crises du jour have changed. What can that in itself tell us? When I was young the doom of mankind was the population explosion. One of the most influential books of the 20^th Century was Dr. Paul R. Ehrlich’s “The Population Bomb.” Why didn’t it go off?

Quantum Love, by Henry Gasko

Quantum physics raises fundamental questions about the nature of reality.  Does it have anything to say about love?

On the Electrodynamics of Skating Bodies, by David Boffa

Everything around us began to move with extraordinary speed, like some switch governing all the known rules of physics had been turned off in the Universe. The skaters and the walls and the rink blurred and became little more than flashes of lights and colors, as though I were watching a film played at twice or triple the normal speed.

Flashes of You, by J.M. Rhineheart

The flash came again and again. In the middle of a busy street, at the bottom of a deep stairwell, and, most memorably, inside the tiger pen at the zoo. She tried to get to them each time, but she never wound up anywhere close by the time the flash disappeared. It left her all the more determined to get to the world beyond.

Eat and be Eaten, by J.L. Akagi

The burning under my skin shifts into prickling ambivalence. No longer painful because my nerves are deadening. Peach trees don’t have nerves. The counselor warned me that this transplantation would mean relinquishing my body. But I thought the annihilation of self would be mortifying. Instead—

Huddle, by Monica Joyce Evans

I wonder, shamefaced, if we need to exchange information of some kind, if they have to report this as an incident or if the tube bus does it automatically. They stare at each other for a minute. Maybe also at me. There’s no need, they say. You didn’t do anything wrong.

The Giant and the Thaumaturge, by Floris Kleijne

Despite its size, Mustanen could tell that the Giant was still young. It must have gotten lost Giantside, must have inadvertently crossed the Boundary. To its kin, it must have inexplicably vanished. Knowing not what it had done, or how, it must have panicked, and in its panic sustained the injuries that drove its mad rampage.

Sovereign Ice, Part 4, by Scot Noel

Six more chapters of this 200,000 word saga to take you deeper into the world of Sovereign Ice. “Not long after the first quake, the mountain shook again, and yet again. It shook until a regular pounding rhythm broke into the darkness and awakened Maya from her grief. When it had begun, the thundering rattle of stone was in response to Maya’s terrifying vision. But this shaking, this determined pounding, was different. Something outside now, beyond the protective stone, was driving its way in.”

ON WRITING

Wulf Moon’s SUPER SECRETS: Character Agency—I Need a Hero!, by Wulf Moon

This Super Secret is on proactive vs. passive heroes. In many submissions from beginners, the protagonist is swept along by circumstance, passively reacting to events instead of exercising their will over events to change their circumstances. It’s a big problem among hopeful writers, often creating a weak internal character arc and failing to engage the reader!

Writing as a Martial Art – Your White Belt Pattern

Following a story pattern or template is not the key to writing your best story, but it can be a disciplined way to focus your mind and learn some basics. Where many submissions show skill with words, a flair for dialog, and a passion for world building, they often fall apart when the story is assembled as a narrative structure on the page. Let’s bow and begin.

Line Edits of The Giant and the Thaumaturge, by Floris Kelijne

Subscribe or support us today on Patreon to unlock this feature. Get a look at the correspondence between author and editor to see how an author responds to story concerns by making a few modest and precisely placed changes that make all the difference in bringing the tale to its highest level of polish.