On Dreams is my first essay collection, published by Bloof Books in May, 2023. Order it here!
Interested in a review copy? Want to interview me, or book me for a reading! No problem — just contact me.
Advance Praise for On Dreams
After being diagnosed, or misdiagnosed, with a rare, “invisible” eye condition that causes blind spots, Maureen Thorson set out to write a self-portrait in a broken mirror: a “mirror of my suffering,” wry and poignant, fragmented and necessarily incomplete. On Dreams is allusive, searching, and self-arguing, a lyric meditation on reality, truth, illusion—the warped reality of the mirror image and everything we “see”—and the illusion, “the dream,” of control.
— Elisa Gabbert, author of Normal Distance
On Dreams
Maureen Thorson’s essays are adroit and aphoristic, resonant and recursive, and stealthily instructive in the ways of the world. These generous and deeply considered writings are exemplary in their use of control and volatility, offering a telescopic window into a vast and fascinating mind.
—Natalie Shapero, author of Popular Longing
This work won’t allow itself to be pinned, even by its author. It follows its own north. In both an internal and external audit of the eye/I, Thorson meditates on the certainties of the body and humanity. Her prose is compelling, evocative and aptly intertextual. Thorson’s narrator oscillates between a desire for recognition and concealment. “Maureen” is intimate with her reader or brilliantly distracting. We witness the writer as human, as woman in a society not built for her true existence, and as simulacra of the elusive self. These electric essays quiver long after you put them down. Thorson’s prose is woke, funny and conscientious.
— Kwoya Fagin Maples, author of Mend
Want to read some essays from the book? Here are a few!