Sara Whym

On Dreamscapes I

Combining fiction, poetry, & theater, this hybrid trilogy begins asMaia, a writer from the borderlands, finally committing to her life’s work, suddenly beholds the vision of Ondine, a child she had desired yet reluctantly aborted 23 years earlier.Though Maia tries at first to discern and dismiss what is behind this spectral presence, the girl takes on a will and traits of her own, some evoking her father (who never knew a thing about her), others her “younger” siblings, but mostly recalling Lise, Maia’s mother, captured as a 5-year old in a 1920s photo.

Long guarded in the darkness by Hetna, Maia’s maternal grandmother, Ondine emerges to act as her wayward mother’s ethereal helper, spurring her on to weave a protective veil of stories, under which the two can meet: tales spun from the threads of everyday life — dreams, memories, and sensations that pass through her nights and days. Inverting the diversionary tactics of Scheherazade, Maia thus finds the courage to return to her writing desk each morning, delivering, in episodic reprisals, words that expose & disperse unfathomable truths belonging to their marvelous, yet strange and deeply troubled family; tales resurrected for Ondine so that she too might redeem some form of life.

news & events

Join Contra Mundum Press at PowerHouse Arena for a Dreamscapes I — Betrayals (101 and 202 Nights) book launch in Brooklyn this May.