Moira Crone's acclaimed book, Dream State (University Press of Mississippi now available in a $14.95 paperback and an $18.95 hardback) contains award-winning stories that radiate from the Louisana landscape and observe the twisted romance and fabulous ironies that resound in this fecund, steamy terrain. It's interesting to live in a place so many people dream about, Crone, professor of creative writing at Louisiana State University in Baton Rouge, says. Sometimes it's hard to live out your own dreams, maybe because it's hard to tell which dreams are yours. The New York Times Book Review says, Dream State successfully presents a fresh version of the deep South, one that is exotic without being either grotesque or romanticized. In the New Orleans Times-Picayune, Susan Larson says, Crone renders the place with an immigrant's clarity and an adopted daughter's solid affection. To read Dream State is to surrender to her spell, a powerful potion of beautiful humor, and keen insight. Crone writes with equal grace about failed movie stars, environmental lawyers, residents of the French Quarter, or models from uptown New Orleans. Her work explores politics, love, immigration, and marriage. Lee Smith characterizes her prose as precise and hallucinatory at the same time. Each of these wonderful tales is as complex as any novel, as vivid and fast and surprising as your life. Moira Crone, who lives in New Orleans, is also the author of the novel A Period of Confinement and the story collection The Winnebago Mysteries. In addition to magazines like the New Yorker, Mademoiselle, and Family Circle, her stories have appeared in Best New Stories from the South and New Stories from Southern Women.