Fiction. "A toxic-shock torrent of bad energy and beautiful language, Colette Phair's 'Nightmare in Silicon' is recklessly brave and driven writing, brimming with fluorescent style and startling ideas. Here is a strong new voice that demands and deserves to be listened to" - Alan Moore. Getting medical tests performed on her to pay the rent, staying up all night with her scarred and strange friends, sharing beds with her boyfriend and whoever else comes along, Ymo's is a world so infused with sex that it's become an identity. Ymo is a woman. That is, until diagnosis with a life-threatening illness leaves her no chance of survival, except in the gender-neutral body of a robot. What follows is her struggle to stay human while existing as a sexless object. Ymo's final role as guinea pig will be to answer the question, "What if people didn't dream?"

Colette Phair is the author of Nightmare in Silicon, winner of the 2006 Chiasmus Press First Book Competition and an answer to the question "What if people didn't dream?" Born in Cleveland, OH, Colette currently lives in Santa Cruz, CA, and has worked for feminist and human rights groups and also in journalism. Her story, 'I Can't See the Eiffel Tower', an excerpt from the novel-in-progress Machines of Paris, can be read in 3:AM London, New York, Paris.