DreamForge Anvil | Issue 13
Our theme in Issue 13 revolves around connections. From twin sisters renewing their sibling bonds on a mysterious world to the difficulties of managing parenthood as a hologram, and on to an alien captive seeking the warmth of connection from its torturers, these tales explore the need to reach out, find approval, achieve understanding, and be loved.
Our Contributors
Don Mark Baldridge
Grasshopper/Ant
Don Mark Baldridge is an American who has lived and worked around the world, spending years at a time in the Eastern Hemisphere or South of the Great 48. The experience has afforded him a global perspective and a wish to see the Earth whole, as from above.

An assistant professor of Art and Computer Science with one of those ancient, shade-strewn colleges that dot Pennsylvania, he's spent a lifetime as a performer and musician and can play a wide variety of musical instruments; all about equally badly.

Look him up at donmarkbaldridge.com

STORY NOTES for "Grasshopper/Ant"

Like a lot of science fiction, this tale is not really about the future, but the present —namely the re-ascendancy of fascism in a world where that idea seemed definitively defeated. Watching my youthful, funloving and dutiful protagonist (even if he is no longer biologically human) slip effortlessly under the control of evil is meant to capture, in fictional terms, the experience of many today —and I've no doubt, many in the 1920s who stood, aghast, to see the promise of youth co-opted by the long shadow of totalitarian strongmen.

As we build the future, coming together as people to reach for that "light that never dims" we have to carry with us and acknowledge the memory of this shadow, to know that it can fall again, and to resist it. We can't forget. We're not allowed to.


Darrin Bright
Goblin Market
With my fiction, I like to subvert genre tropes and pick apart how stories are put together. Part of that is my English degree trying to deconstruct how and why the stories work the way they do, particularly when the characters in the story are self-aware of the tropes and are either trying to avoid or subvert them as part of the story. If the main character runs into Death and Death says OH, I'M SUPPOSED TO MEET YOU IN SAMARRA TOMORROW, can that character, knowing how that story ends, use the tropes to find a different ending? But another good chunk of it is so I can make cheeky jokes about the tropes at the genre's expense.

STORY NOTES for "Goblin Market"
"Goblin Market" is my piss-take on the Wizarding School genre. When I first submitted it to my writers' workshop, it was only two scenes long. The feedback I got back from the workshop was they wanted to know more about this shopkeeper. What was his story? What was his motivation in all this? I pushed back on that a little, because I thought the story was done. But against my not-so-better-judgement, I went back and added another scene, and I'm glad I did. While we don't quite get the shopkeeper's full backstory, I was able to connect things back to the fairy tale roots of the genre.

Z.T. Bright
Somehow, She Remains
Z.T. Bright is an author in deep—like, really deep—cover as a Financial Planner. He lives in Salt Lake City with his wife, four kids, two dogs, and two cats (yes, it’s as loud as it sounds). He writes all things speculative and was the winner of the inaugural Mike Resnick Memorial award and a winner of the Writers of the Future Contest.
Jason P. Burnham
Variegated, I
Jason P. Burnham loves to spend time with his wife, children, and dog. He co-edits If There's Anyone Left, a magazine of inclusive speculative fiction, with his friend C.M. Fields. Find Jason on Twitter (if it still exists) at @AndGalen.
Christopher Collingwood
That Special Ship
Chris was born and raised in Sydney Australia. He completed university in Sydney, graduating with a degree in business studies, and has worked across various finance roles. Chris has devoted his spare time to writing, with works published in Not One of Us, Andromeda Spaceways, Abyss & Apex, Hexagon, Shoreline of Infinity, Jersey Devil Press, and the recent Smoke in the Stars anthology, among other dimensionally unstable places.

STORY NOTES for ‘That Special Ship’
A glimpse of the horizon may change its shape over the years, as light tries to reach its Captain at a more distant place, a heart that no longer sees the cockpit as a place to stand, but as the center of companionship. This poem explores that special bond, and is a homage to that one uncredited cast member that has appeared in so much great science fiction over the years, making space feel so much more welcoming.

Victoria Dixon
Cold Heart
Victoria Dixon is obsessed with writing, culture, books, faith and family, though not in that order. She lives in Kansas, which is not monochrome, regardless of what fraudulent wizards might suggest.
David Hankins
Writing Resilience
David Hankins is the award-winning author of Death and the Taxman. He writes from the thriving cornfields of Iowa where he lives with his wife, daughter, and two dragons disguised as cats. His short stories have graced the pages of Writers of the Future Volume 39, DreamForge Magazine, Unidentified Funny Objects 9, Third Flatiron Anthologies, and others. David devotes his time to his passions of writing, traveling, and finding new ways to pay his mortgage. You can find him at https://davidhankins.com
Robert E. Harpold
No Hugs for Holographic Fathers
Robert E. Harpold is an engineer working for ERC, Inc., a subcontractor for NASA, designing trajectories for the Artemis missions. In his previous jobs, he has operated a weather satellite and a space-weather spacecraft for NOAA and, for a different NASA project, has flown over Greenland and Antarctica to collect data on their elevation changes. He is married to his amazing and accomplished wife Julie and has a young and very smart daughter named Isabelle.
Susan Kaye Quinn
Rewriting the Future
Susan Kaye Quinn is an environmental engineer/rocket scientist turned speculative fiction author who now uses her PhD to invent cool stuff in books. Her works range from hopepunk climate fiction to futuristic spec fic, with side trips into cyberpunk and steampunk romance. Her novels have been optioned for Virtual Reality, translated into German and French, and her short fiction has appeared in Future Chronicles, Beyond the Stars, and Grist’s Imagine 2200: Climate Fiction for Future Ancestors.

Susan writes full-time, trying to dream a better future into being. She believes being cozy, gentle, and healing is radical and disruptive. Check out her website for more about hopepunk, solarpunk, and why she believes stories can lead the way forward.  https://susankayequinn.com/hopepunk-solarpunk

Wulf Moon
Wulf Moon's SUPER SECRETS: Title is Your First Hook - A Rose By Any Other Name is Not Just as Sweet
Wulf Moon learned oral storytelling as a child when he lived with his Chippewa grandmother. He begged stories from her every night and usually got his wish—fireside tales that fired his imagination. If Moon had a time machine, those are the days he would go back to. Since he doesn’t have a time machine, he writes.

Moon wrote his first science fiction story at fifteen. It won the national Scholastic Art & Writing Awards, and became his first professional sale in Science World. He has won over forty writing awards, and thirty in public speaking. His stories have appeared in Writers of the Future Vol. 35, Best of Deep Magic 2, Galaxy's Edge, Best of Third Flatiron , and Star Trek: Strange New Worlds 2 . Moon is a professional voice-over actor and has done work for magazines and bestselling authors Jeff Wheeler, Mike Resnick, and Will McIntosh. 

Wulf Moon's award-winning SUPER SECRETS Writing Resource and Workshops have been attributed by many aspiring writers as the secret to their success in obtaining first professional sales and winning major contests. You can discover Moon's books on writing by visiting his website. Want in on the Secrets? JOIN THE WULF PACK at www.thesupersecrets.com!
DreamForge Staff
Jane Noel
Graphic Design, Layout, Illustration
Jane is the Founder of Chroma Marketing Essentials, a digital marketing agency located in Jeannette PA.  She holds a degree in Visual Communications from the Art Institute of Pittsburgh and more years of experience than she cares to count.
Before founding CME, Jane worked as an Artist, Art Lead, Art Director, and Project Manager for the computer game developer DreamForge Intertainment, where she worked on a number of early computer games, including Roger Zelazny’s Chronomaster.
Scot Noel
Editor, Editorial Selections, Essays, and more.
Scot Noel is a content writer for websites, blogs, social media, e-newsletters, and the like. Speculative fiction has always been his obsession, resulting in a Writers of the Future 2nd place win in 1990, a 7-year career in computer game development, and a handful of published stories, ranging from far future and zombie fiction to the tale of a fairy sheriff fighting an evil dragon. He serves as the editor and publisher of DreamForge Magazine and DreamForge Anvil.
Henry Gasko
Editorial Assistant
Henry Gasko was born in a displaced persons camp in Yugoslavia after World War Two. He was raised on a vegetable farm in Canada, and emigrated to Australia more than forty years ago. He has recently retired from a career in data analysis and medical research.

Henry has had stories published in the anthologies "Dreamworks", “Alternate Apocalypse”, “On Time”, in Australia's  Aurealis  magazine, and in the  SciPhi Journal .  He is a two-time semi-finalist in The Writers of the Future and he won first prize in Positive Writer's "Why I Write" essay contest. He also won the 2018 Sapiens Plurum short story competition, and came third in the 2020 competition.

When he is not writing, he enjoys cycling, kayaking, swimming and playing bridge.
Catherine Weaver
Editorial Assistant
Catherine Weaver is a writer, editor and educator from the San Francisco Bay Area, where her family has lived for four generations. 

She is the author of two Middle Grade fantasy novels, one bilingual English/Japanese picture book, and many short stories.

For the past ten years, she has been a freelance proofreader and editor, and has helped dozens of self-published authors of all genres bring their work into the world.

She has spent over forty years volunteering with her church in literacy and education programs in her community.

Her books are on Amazon and Goodreads and her website is: https://catherineweaverauthor.com/