This is the debut title from the new Nightscape Press Charitable Chapbooks line. One third of all sales of this chapbook will go to support the ACLU! When she was young, Slaw often woke screaming. In the darkness of her bedroom, she would whisper a single prayer to the invisible gods of her childhood: “Please don’t let me dream.” But as she grew older, day-to-day life overwhelmed her imagination—smothering her dreams under the pillow of the mundane. Now a stressed, middle-aged ER doctor at Dunnstown General, Slaw receives a strange proposition from a junkie would-be-patient. A dream for a drug. The days that follow lead to terror, seduction, self-loathing, and enlightenment as Dr. Slaw breaks the yoke of her humdrum existence and slakes her dream-thirst. But can she survive in a new world where everything she sees and touches blooms with the most opulent nightmares? And, if she does survive, what will Dr. Slaw become?
Author
Jon Padgett is a professional–though lapsed–ventriloquist who lives in New Orleans. He is the Editor-In-Chief of Grimscribe Press, which publishes Vastarien: A Literary Journal , a source of critical study and creative response to the work of Thomas Ligotti. Padgett’s first short story collection, The Secret of Ventriloquism, was named the Best Fiction Book of the Year by Rue Morgue Magazine. Padgett’s voice has also become synonymous with the works of Thomas Ligotti. Padgett has lent his voice to numerous Thomas Ligotti works, including the recently released Penguin Random House audio version of Songs of a Dead Dreamer and Grimscribe and various Cadabra Record releases, “The Bungalow House,” “The Red Tower,” “The Small People,” “Gas Station Carnivals,” “The Clown Puppet,” “Pictures of Apocalypse,” and “Mrs. Rinaldi’s Angel.” In addition to his work as a Ligotti narrator, Padgett has also narrated two Cadabra Records releases of his own work, “20 Simple Steps to Ventriloquism” and “Origami Dreams.” With his ability to channel Ligotti’s prose and poetry via the spoken word, Padgett is a singular figure in the world of weird storytelling.
