Dreams for a Broken World by Julie C Day

Dreams for a Broken World by Julie C Day

This anthology offers seriously admirable work. Highly recommended. --Arley Sorg, Lightspeed Magazine

24 impressive stories of healing and rebuilding...These hopeful stories offer something for any speculative fiction reader. --Publishers Weekly

Patron saints and luchadores. Trickster gods. Freedom fighters. Infections of fire. Gated communities and glass castles. Hong Kong. Iran. NYC. The 1860s and the end of the world. The stories in this anthology reflect the authors' varied creative interests along with their multitudinous backgrounds and experiences.

What does it mean to live in a fragmented and uncertain world? How do we find a better way forward? The anthology Dreams for a Broken World draws from both genre and literary traditions in attempt to answer these questions. Included here are original stories and reprints. The mix of genres, from literary to fantastical, from dark to playful, from speculative to activist, offers perspectives that are varied, imaginative, thoughtful, and provocative. The 24 contributors include such award-winning authors as Ava Homa, Aimee Liu, Usman T. Malik, Nisi Shawl, Sheree Ren e Thomas, Vandana Singh, Andrew Altschul, Joy Baglio, Innocent Chizarama Ilo, Breena Clarke, Zig Zag Claybourne, Tina Egnoski, Cai Emmons, JoeAnn Hart, C line Keating, Jan Maher, Benjamin Parzybok, Charles Payseur, Robert V.S. Redick, Veronica Schanoes, Lisa Taylor, Marie Vibbert, Cynthia Young, and Sabrina Vourvoulias.

Dreams for a Broken World is the second charity anthology in the Dreams series published by Essential Dreams Press, an imprint of Reckoning Press; charity means that all the proceeds from sales are donated to a non-profit doing work to fix our broken world.

Ellen Meeropol joins series editor Julie C. Day as guest editor of this second book in the Dreams series, a fundraiser for the Rosenberg Fund for Children. The RFC is a non-profit, public foundations that aids children in the U.S. whose parents are targeted, progressive activists. They also assist youth who themselves have been targeted as a result of their progressive activities.

Can stories change the world? Not alone. But as poet Mart n Espada wrote, Any oppressive social condition, before it can be changed, must be named and condemned in words that persuade by stirring the emotions, awakening the senses.

Naming. Condemning. Stirring. Awakening. That's what we hope these stories will do for all of us.

A literary late bloomer, Ellen Meeropol began writing fiction in her fifties when she was working as a nurse practitioner in a pediatric hospital. Since leaving her nursing practice in 2005, Ellen has worked as the publicist and book group coordinator for an independent bookstore and taught fiction workshops. She is a founding member of the Rosenberg Fund for Children and author of the script for their dramatic program Celebrate, which has been produced in four cities, most recently in 2007 starring Eve Ensler, David Strathairn and Angela Davis. Drawing material from her twin passions of medical ethics and political activism, her fiction explores characters at the intersection of political turmoil and family life.

Ellen holds an MFA in creative writing from the Stonecoast program at the University of Southern Maine. Her stories have appeared in Bridges, Portland Magazine, Pedestal, Patchwork Journal, and The Women's Times. House Arrest is her first novel. She lives in Western Massachusetts.