"octopus dreams" out in the rappahannock review

RAPPAHANNOCK REVIEW publishes great work and has been on my radar for a while. When they solicited creative nonfiction from me, I sent my new lyric sequence “Octopus Dreams” to them (and nowhere else), and they accepted it soon later. Writing and publishing should always be this easy! Big thanks to editor Kelly Donaghey.
 
Some of Kathy Fish’s flash prompts made me write down dreams that I ended up using here. The sequence was originally inspired by a cool video online of an octopus changing color while she dreams.

Love the cover art from the 16th century botanist Gherardo Cibo (1512-1600). The editors comment: “When we came across this artwork, we were immediately drawn to its surrealism and exaggerated scale, intrigued by the idea that these oversized plants exist and almost levitate while the rest of the image suggests that nothing is out of the norm.” There are more illustrations from the manuscript here.