Today my astrology app (Co-Star for the newbs) told me to “tell the truth and run,” which made me laugh because my first text message of the day (to my BFF) was, “I just woke up from a romantic dream about you and now we can never speak to each other again.”
But seriously, what more perfect advice than this? I mean, part of me wants to counter it with “tell the truth and stay,” because that might be even more challenging depending on your own tendencies. Telling the truth and running feels like something I’ve always done. Staying has never come naturally to me. What could be learned from telling the truth and then just… sticking around to see what the truth does.
Speaking of dreams, I recently acquired this painting (above) from my friend Alexandra Grajeda, who is a talented artist and post-partum care provider based here in Taos. She is one of the first people I became friends with after I decided to stay here, as we were coworkers at my first Taos job, and I’ve enjoyed seeing her painting progress over the past few years. She calls this one “Emergence” and this is what she wrote about it on Instagram when she first posted the painting there back in March:
“Though somewhat dark and maybe even a tad gruesome, she is the story of Mother Earth and the Divine Feminine emerging from a sea of discrimination, hate, pain, poison, illness and darkness. I work to evoke inspiration, forward movement, pro activism, and strength through my art, especially through this piece.”
As soon as I saw it, I texted her, “This is some serious Pisces/Aries energy!” from the waves of the sea to the flames of her hair.
Another friend who saw that the painting was hanging in my bedroom cautioned me against “sleeping in the presence of something so dark” and I was like, “it’s so dark I likely won’t even see it when all the lights are off,” which in fact Alexandra had told me when she dropped the painting off. But this friend planted a seed in my brain, I think, because for the past two nights, since I hung the painting, I have had intense dreams, and intensely romantic dreams at that. Could be the painting, or it could be all the episodes of Married at First Sight I’ve binged in the past week. I mean, I’ve witnessed over a dozen weddings since the last time I sent this newsletter. That’s too many weddings! I’m taking a break.
DREAM POP
Dream Pop is taking submissions for our first themed issue, the Speculative Diary Issue edited by Kenning JP Garcia! Submissions for this issue are open until October 5th and you can find full details of the submission guidelines on our website.
Everything in the Dream Pop Press catalog is on sale for 20% off! If you’re doing the Sealey Challenge, stock up on chapbooks from our 2019 run.
Use coupon code SUBSTACK at checkout.
“I have a new fantasy of becoming: to be absorbed in mothercake, in whose queer ecology Kolby Harvey has rendered a (de)generative new science fiction and fact where each sentence throbs its glorious purple obscenity.” – Tim Jones-Yelvington, author of Strike a Prose: Memoirs of a Lit Diva Extraordinaire and Become on Yr Face.
Reeman’s Invention of the Mouth picks at the knot of disturbing relations that exist between individuals and various “death-machines” of the state: the guillotine, the gun, the atom bomb, the family. Whether of J. Robert Oppenheimer or Reeman’s own grandparents, the creations of those who came before us, at some point, got away from them. Whether it’s the atom bomb or alcoholism, we are left to deal with the aftermath: what destroys us. But framed by the “mouth” of the guillotine – associated as it is with the French Revolution – these poems refuse fatalism & remind readers that sometimes destroying what destroys you involves “us” destroying “them.” – Wendy Trevino, author of Cruel Fiction (Commune Editions)
B’ellana Johannx’s Satanic Verses: A Guidebook for the New Transfaggot is something of a genreless treatise and assertion of [queer] [trans] life. There is so much happening in this brief collection, that it’s somewhat overwhelming, in a good way—in a challenging and fulfilling way. Satanic Verses is intimacy and vulnerability, violence and subversion. Epic in form, but taking on elements of memoir, interview, and criticism, Johannx’s Guidebook is a godless sermon—a rallying cry to queer femmes to be unapologetically authentic. The blending of the old and new, the sacred and the sinful, create a new Queer scripture, and offer a roadmap to self-acceptance and love. – Caseyrenée Lopez, author of the new gods and heretic bastard
ERASE THE PATRIARCHY
Erase the Patriarchy is now available from University of Hell Press! This book is printed in full-color and features erasures made with a vast array of materials including cooking spices, dirt, blood, paint, and collage. You can order through University of Hell above or from me if you’d like a signed copy (only 1 left!) This erasure from the anthology is by Raye Hendrix, and it’s an erasure of Roy Moore:
We are in the process of putting together some Zoom launch events for the book, so stay tuned for that info!
READ / WATCH / LISTEN
Shudder’s La Llorona, which is less jump-scary and more slow and spooky with satisfying political revenge.
Just started listening to the audiobook of Michelle McNamara’s I’ll Be Gone in the Dark.
Buy my books on Bookshop.org!