“I draw my greatest inspiration from my dreams. If we are lucky enough to recover the workings of our mind during the night, then we know that without much effort, we naturally create the most elaborate stories (in rapid succession, no less) while asleep. Though dreams do not always translate easily on the page in a work of fiction, often there is a single vision, either distressing or gorgeously otherworldly, from which I tease out a scene. Though many writers keep a journal where they take note of the things that happened to them during the day, I keep a dream journal where I make note, as soon as I wake up, of the things that happened to me, or some version of me, in the night. To each her own. So too, in times of panic when the writing is not flowing, I close my eyes and try as hard as possible to reenter a dream I had or think of a scene I want to write in a dreamy way so that my own voice is silenced and the voice the story requires can be heard. I think of this as my own form of meditation.”
—Hannah Lillith Assadi, author of Sonora (Soho Press, 2017)
Photo credit: Ulysse Payet