Nightmare Diaries
What is the worst dream you’ve ever had? Was it too real to be disbelieved on waking? Was it so bizarre that it shook you out of sleep, gasping for breath? Did your nightmare cling to you for hours, even days, after it mangled your precious sleep?
Can you remember it now? Can you remember how it felt?
Our first anthology Nightmare Diaries is a tribute to the sickening feeling of a bad dream half-dissipated. Nightmares are frightening because they distort the reality of waking life. In sleep, we’re vulnerable to our fears. New phobias lurk under the floorboards of the mind. This type of dream goes beyond common anxiety, like forgetting an important assignment or showing up naked to school. Nightmares get under the skin and, once their barbs are set, can be shockingly hard to shake off.
We received 3,641 submissions for Nightmare Diaries. There were some tech issues in responding to a handful of writers, as our email ate/hid some submissions. (Mercury is not in retrograde, but it appears that Microsoft is.) Hopefully, this error won’t be repeated. For the most part, people have been gracious and patient, which is appreciated.
Stories were solicited via open call—we don’t charge a reading fee, and we use email-only submissions to keep the barriers to publishing as low as possible for as many writers as possible. We received an abundance of excellent stories, and making final decisions was incredibly challenging. Writers sent their best from around the world, including stories from the United States, Nigeria, Greece, China, Japan, Denmark, Canada, Australia, Wales, India, Iran, New Zealand, England, France, and more. We also received a substantial number of stories from emerging or formerly unpublished authors; it’s always an honor to be someone’s first publishing credit.
Finding stories that not only stand as independent pieces but also coalesce as a collection, with each story speaking to its neighbors (tonally, thematically, and in terms of craft) is a difficult task; the final selections were made based on a number of factors and, we hope, will give you the worst dreams of your life. Nightmare Diaries includes:
Erin Brown, “Salt of My Brother”
Chloe N. Clark, “In the Dark, They Say You Can't See What's Coming for You”
Taylor Dye, “The Blind Curve”
Claire Rudy Foster, “Sophia”
Kate Gorton, “Daylight in the Swamp”
Josh Hanson, “Goat's Blood Hymnal”
Jeremy Horwich, “Wrong Rabbit”
Andrew Kozma, “The Hole in the Sky”
Keith LaFountaine, “Flu Season”
R. Lazarus, “This Is Where You Loved Me”
Tiffany Meuret, “I Don't Think the Lexapro is Helping”
Rajiv Moté, “Fecund”
A.M. Muffaz, “Mother's Work”
K.M. Parker, “Ice & Madness”
Antony Paschos, “In a Pit of a Thousand Hags”
Joey R. Poole, “Forever”
Keith Rosson, “Animals, Convincing”
Kayli Scholz, “Intruder Theory”
P.G. Streeter, “Fortunato, After”
Ethan Warren, “Malcolm Strickland’s Dreams”
Kayla Whittle, “The Botanist”
The anthology will be published on the full moon, November 14, 2024. You can preorder your copy via our shop. A limited number of advance review copies will be available through NetGalley or by arrangement with Moonstruck Books. (If you’re a reviewer with interest in this title, please reach out to pr@moonstruck-books.com.)
