In Brief: a New Fiction Anthology, and My Work in Dream Literature

A collective achievement worth celebrating for Substack authors

On 17 July, a great new fiction anthology was published. I was honored to appear along with 21 other authors, including the book’s co-author and publisher, Winston Malone, of the recommended Storyletter Xpress Substack and publishing enterprise. The individual approaches in the book, entitled Take Me There: A Speculative Anthology of Travel are diverse in both style and genre, but broadly come together around concepts of travel, transformation and imagination.

Today, I’ll provide the key info on this book and how/where you can get it. After that, I’ll expand on my own anthology contribution, something fairly new for me—that is, from the genre of dream-literature. I consider this ‘travel writing by other means,’ and when the subject matter is somewhat travel-oriented, there is a harmonic symmetry to the whole adventure.

How to Buy the Take Me There Anthology and Author Information

Take Me There: A Speculative Anthology of Travel was published via IngramSpark, and is available physically and digitally. Along with special boxed offers for paid subscribers of Storyletter Xpress, it is available on Ingram Spark directly here, and also on this link tree for Amazon, B&N, etc.

The authors featured are Brian Reindel, Brylle Gaviola, Christopher Deliso, Clarice Sanchez Meneses, C.R. Langille, Daniel W. Davison, Devon Field, Galia Ignatius, H. A. Titus, Iris Shaw, J.M. Elliott, Jack Massa, James Castor, Joe Golden, LB Waltz, M.S. Arthadian, Melissa Rose Rogers, Olivia St. Lewis, Pamela Urfer, Randall Hayes, Shaina Read, Shannon Aaron Stephens, Victor D. Sandiego and Winston Malone. This anthology thus shows the value of Substack as a platform where actual books are being produced and where writers have expanded opportunities to publish what they love.

A good way to get to know the authors, and read some synopses of the stories featured, visit the relevant Storyletter Xpress author interview page. I was happy to be interviewed (along with another contributor, Galia Ignatius) for this series; all of these can be read here.

My Story, and My View of Dream Literature

My anthology contribution, Two Visions of the Mountain of the Saints, is a literal (if slightly stylized) retelling of an actual dream I had in May 2023. The inherent contradiction of the narration is that the envisioned physical terrain, persons and even text in the dream both affirm and negate the most likely ‘real’ earthly destination—the monastic community of Mt. Athos in Greece, a place I’ve visited several times. However, certain impossibilities in the dream infer that the place must be other—has the dreamer/narrator visited Heaven, or is it a mere delusion of the subconscious? Or, one might argue, some social commentary is involved. One never knows, with fiction. The factor of lucidity and conscious control over the dream, affirmed in the narrative, is another aspect that lends subtle sophistication to the retelling.

The Parallel Project: Dream Literature

This literal type of dream-narration is one of two types of dream literature I’ve been collecting since September 2021, when I began the occasional practice of writing down any interesting fragment or occasionally, entire dream, mostly humorous but sometimes sad or confusing. As I see it, if the subconscious is going to provide free material, it would be foolish not to accept it; it saves energy on having to imagine ever-new story ideas. And, such material brings with it a certain satisfaction of originality, even if one can’t completely take the credit for imagining it.

I have collected about 30 stories or fragments thus far, and intend to publish a collection out of them someday. It would be helpful to find a professional illustrator for this pursuit at some point, as I’m no artist. In addition to the literal retellings, there are also fragmentary pieces, or else dreams that are not written simply, but rather get reconfigured and perhaps added on to, creating a hybrid story.

Some Already-Published Examples

If you’ve been following this newsletter for a while, you may have already read something from my dream-literature compendium, and not even known it. For example, from the more literal retelling (but with some added plot and details) there was “The Captain’s Machine.”

And, back on 11 September 2023, there was “How the Retrograde Curse was reverse-engineered (and rather spectacularly, too”), though this has only partial dream-inspired imagery, with the bulk of it is actually very ‘written’ and full of allusions and plotting.

These are just a few examples of the range of applications I’ve chosen for the raw material of dream-data, as I’ve been able to haphazardly record it in the past three years. While every story (and work-in-progress) is unique, I have been struck with something new—or, if it occurred earlier in life, I’ve forgotten—which is the occasional quick manifestation of either spoken, heard or written text in a lucid dream. Inevitably, such prose is wonderful and far beyond my waking capabilities, which only makes it the more aggravating when I wake and it has all dissipated back into the ether.

Nevertheless, on we must travel, and I am grateful for whatever bits of memory my sleeping mind provides, that I may continue to reuse it to entertain the reader well into the future. I am optimistic that this exploration of a genre for the first time in my writing life, in these early Substack stories and now, the Take Me There anthology, will be just the first of much more to come. I can also say that elements of dream fiction are  used in my recently-revised Detective Grigoris novel, though in a more conventional way fitting the genre.

I consider the new development generally fulfilling considering the value of imagination and observation, expanded beyond the usual waking comprehension to the subconscious mind. It’s like another form of fishing. The general project is about three years old now, and still has a ways to go. I shall now desist from my carrying on, and wish you all a good day. But let me merely point out that for those with interests in the general genre of dream or vision fiction (from ancient to medieval to modern times), Wikipedia has an informative page here. (Not that following these convention is my goal; after all, it’s always best to be oneself). But a little more education is always beneficial.