Dreampunk! discussion

Hi, all. Our newest member DJ pointed out that we didn't have a thread for introductions, so here goes!

I'm Cliff Jones Jr., aspiring novelist and founder of this group. Check out my website for lots of info and goodies, including interviews with other dreampunk writers:

http://cliffjonesjr.com/dreampunk

Where to begin with who I am? For the past 15 years, I've been with my wife Tina, so that's a big part of me. We have two daughters: a 12-year-old and a 10-month-old. I was raised by a pair of aspiring novelists who split up when I was 12. I have an autistic younger brother named Caleb who's been institutionalized since I was a teenager. Autism covers a wide range of behaviors, but for my brother it means fits of violence and virtually no communication.

I have a master's in linguistics, and I used to teach English in Japan, but I code JavaScript for a living. I like to draw and paint and sculpt and cook and all that artsy stuff. I grew up enough in the country that the woods were my playground, and I got free rein of them. Wherever I go, I seek out nature, or at least the little bits of it I can walk to from my home. I hate driving and only do it when I have to.

That last bit reminds me... I'm a fanatic for Philip K. Dick. He hated driving too. Ending this post here before I start just writing about Philip K. Dick.

Heya Cliff, thanks for making an official thread for this.

Welp, let me start anew. My name is DJ, I've been an aspiring novelist since 2013, even though I didn't truly tackle writing a novel until 3 years--and many short stories + failed NaNoWriMo's--later. I'm very much into fantasy, although I've since become rather tired of samey high fantasy and am always looking for authors who incorporate fantastical elements into their stories in new, surprising ways. Susanna Clarke is currently my favorite fantasy author.

I'll be getting a bachelor's degree in Creative Writing at the end of this year, so I'm excited to finally be out of college and move on to devoting more time to my job and novel endeavors. I also have experience writing memoir and poetry, but I always return to fiction. Although genres definitely blend/intermingle, fiction offers the broadest canvas with which to create stories, and that's what drew me in as a kid.

My favorite story isn't even a fantasy though, haha, it's a mystery manga called Monster (which actually does contain a few fairy tale stories within it). I also do like Philip K. Dick! I've only read a couple of his short stories, but I enjoy his writing style/approach to themes and I'd like to explore his writing more.

But yeah, that's the gist of me :P looking forward to learning more about this genre, thanks for the link to your site, Cliff.

Fallon here. Published writer since 2018, been writing since my sophomore year in high school. I just found out about "dreampunk" today, and am grateful to learn that my novels actually have a genre besides "dark/urban fantasy." My debut novel, Geist: Prelude, is about a high functioning autistic who gets dragged into his own dark, gothic world. It borrows elements from Brazil, The City Of Lost Children, and the Persona franchise to make a nightmarish cityscape of cathedrals and rampant crime. It's actually on Goodreads too.

Thanks for having me.

Geist: Prelude

Hello,
I've been fascinated with dreams all my life and had many striking and memorable dreams. I have had a series of dreams where I visit and return to locations over and over again in my, dreams that clearly do not exist in the Waking World but do exist in my own dream world.
I've read extensively on dreams, both the science and the theological implications and inspirations of dreams.
I am a fan of Lovecraft's Dreamland series, and that led me to write my own series of fantasy novels set in Dreamland.
A 2021 book on the science of dreams is by Antonio Zadra & Robert Stickgold: When Brains Dream. Antonio Zadra wrote his first fantasy novel, The DreamKeepers, which is quite good.
And, of course, a fan of Neil Gaiman's The Sandman series!

Welcome to the group! Unfortunately, it doesn't seem to be too active these days, but that's how these things go.

I'll definitely have to check out your and Zadra's novels soon. As a sort of ambassador for the genre of dreampunk, I've got to keep up, and these sound pretty awesome anyway.

I would appreciate hearing what you thought of them!

I have been posting some things on the group's Facebook page!

Limited edition clothbound gold foil giveaway for my book Endymion or The State of Entropy which is a dream sequence portraying my battle with the subconscious. giveaway link below