Mumford & Sons’ song “Wilder Mind” on their album by the same title says something about identity and the imagination – “you can be every little thing you want nobody to know.” My new project SALT DREAMS is also about wilder minds and even wilder hearts than in UNDERCURRENTS.  The novel explores identity and desire.

Salt is a trace mineral necessary for life – blood, sweat, tears, and most other body fluids are salty.  The trace of salt left on the skin after a sweaty run, sweaty sex, sweaty illness is a sign of thirst.  In SALT DREAMS, desire (as an unquenchable thirst) is the salt left to dry on the skin. 

The in-between world of dreams is littered with lingering desire.  In-between spaces, such as boundaries (actual ones or those in the mind) and thresholds (both literal and figurative), tend to give rise to more nuanced expressions of identity. In-between spaces are alternative or third spaces where people can come together without statements of identity like race, class, gender, or sexuality.  SALT DREAMS deals with a hypothetical: what if you woke up one day and discovered your whole life had been nothing but a dream.