Moon Dog and Rainbow Dreaming

"Mortis's 'I Dreamt of Gold' is a vibrant and thoughtfully measured poetics of self-discovery. As the poem's speaker works to find their musicality and lyricism, we see them also arrive at a deep knowledge of the beauty of heritage and history residing within."

-Barbara Jane Reyes, author of Diwata, Letters to a Young Brown Girl, Daughtersong Diaspore, and others

"Get ready for a ride of imagination through destinations familiar, off-kilter, and even dangerous. Just when you think you have your bearings, Flores bends time and place in this journey through Filipino history and culture, where myths blend seamlessly with reality."

-Thelma Virata de Castro

Playwright, Dramatists Guild Foundation National Fellow, California Arts Council Individual Artist Fellow

The expanded collection highlights slipstream, science fiction, magical realism, and poems originally featured at the 8th Filipino American International Book Festival.

J. J. de Melo: The science fiction short story "Tethered" focuses on a monster from Filipino folklore aboard a spaceship, while "Mind Sweep" explores AI moderation on relationships.

Maleia Mortis: Poems "I Dreamt of Gold" and "Sapin Sapin" examine heritage, memory, and self-discovery.

Monica T. S. Flores: "Moon Dog" is a magical realism tale with horror elements about a supernatural dog-guardian, while "The Forty-First Day: Selurong Arrival" tells of the first brothers to land on the archipelago. "Kristal" follows a couple's crystalline visions.

Illustration by Raf Banzuela.

J.J. de Melo is a queer Filipino-American and Portuguese writer based in San Francisco, California. He's an active member of the literary community at the City College of San Francisco, where he earned his degree in Creative Writing. He's also an epidemiologist, working a double life as an author-scientist.

Maleia Mortis is a queer Filipinx-American experimental poet based in the San Francisco Bay Area. Their poems have appeared in Visual Verse: An Anthology of Art and Words, BuliLit Magazine by Sampaguita Press, and Datura Literary Journal.

Monica T. S. Flores' stories are in the benefit anthology "Hope is Not Passive," Faoileánach Journal, Amethyst Review, and Capital Letters Eclectic Fiction. Her origin story, The Forty-First Day: Selurong Arrival, is nominated for the Pushcart Award in 2027.