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Vol.2 Iss.4 Now Live!

The staff of The New Bedlam Project would like to welcome new visitors Neil Colquhoun and Gerald So, and a hearty hi-dee-ho to returning vacationers Zoe E.Whitten, Wayne Goodchild, and Jeff Parish. We're happy to have you stopping over with us!


Courting Morpheus on Kindle!


Submissions

The New Bedlam Project is now CLOSED to submissions. We open again April 1st following some exciting changes!


About New Bedlam


My grandparents used to tell my cousins and me that we were slowly turning my hometown into New Bedlam. The town I offered to the original 13 writers is different than Thornhill, since gathering stories written about a town with less than 100 people is... odd.

Not that this New Bedlam isn't odd, mind you. Every character experiences New Bedlam in a different manner, perhaps a different time or on a different plane. I experienced New Bedlam as a far greater place than my hometown. The family spirit/mascot came to life in my imagination, his hand reaching through the mirror that graced the second floor landing of my grandparent's old, creaky house. I followed him... you know how it is.

That mirror hangs on the wall in my bedroom now. Every time I sit down to write, I know my grandparents - and Yahootie - are watching over my shoulder. And hey, I have a picture of that mirror where you can see someone looking out, but no one was in front of it...

Over the past several years I've personally been working on fiction based in New Bedlam. Stories selected for CM2 (aka Courting Morpheus Too) indicated a disaster of sorts destroying the town, and my novel-in-progress One For Sorrow has continued with that theme. Another novel centers around the re-construction. Stories selected for the magazine have fallen on either side of the destruction.

For me, I just can't stay away...

In the summer of 2008 New Bedlam itself was destroyed by a psychotic woman using the Earth's elements in a bid to gain power and seek revenge against anyone standing in her way. Within 48 hours, New Bedlam was ravaged by an earthquake, an F5 tornado, followed by a wild-fire, and lastly, the river rose and flooded anything that remained in the town.

It was thought that disaster had driven the monsters, the evil, out of the town, but it seemed to only add a deeper level to the darkness.

In 2010, a handful of recent college graduates undertake to re-build the once-glorious writer's retreat, although on a smaller scale than pre-disaster. What they find is a darkness that seems to have grown.

There is no specific geographical location for New Bedlam, Lassiter County, other than north of Missouri, east of Utah, south of Nunavut and west of Kentucky.

In my heart, New Bedlam will always be right here in Southern Manitoba.

Jodi Lee

 

 

Maps of New Bedlam

 
Pre-2008           &           Post-2008
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Download a PDF file of the Prologue/Epilogue and the original Courting Morpheus map here.