The Castle of My Dreams

Castle and proprietor. Count on it.
All photos in this post 2019 Jessica Knauss 

In January 2006, I was studying very hard in Salamanca. I was also getting to know the public face of Manolo Garcia as I'd never had the opportunity to before, and loving every new thing I learned, about both Alfonso X el Sabio and Manolo Garcia.

That month, thirteen years ago, I dreamed I lived in a large structure with many staircases and bedrooms. This wonderful dwelling was filled with ten or twelve writers and artists, focusing on their creations and feeling inspired by their distraction-free but gorgeous surroundings. One unassuming but popular guest was Manolo Garcia. He would give impromptu creativity talks in chambers where everyone sat on sumptuous pillows, but mostly he created, like all the other artists. He stopped me on a staircase to thank me for inviting him to my artistically stimulating refuge from the obligations of daily life, saying it had been the best month of his life.

Since then, I've known exactly what I will do with all the money I'll earn from bestselling books and unexpected inheritances. I'm inspired to run an artists' colony where writers and all kinds of creatives can practice their art unencumbered in a spectacular setting.

Fast forward ten years, ten of the best years of my life because they included my marriage to Stanley. Poking around on the internet one day in late 2015, I found a castle for sale. A Spanish castle for sale. The asking price was five million euros, which doesn't seem outlandish to fulfill one's cherished life dream, but was far out out of my prospects.

I showed the listing to my soul mate and he was happy to find out it's in the same region as Frías, a gorgeous medieval wonderland we'd recently seen and where he said many times (jokingly) that we should go and live. The region is called the Merindades, and it's the hardscrabble mountain birth mother of Castile, and thus of Spain as we know it.

Specifically, my castle is located in Lezana de Mena. It's next door to the place where the word "Castile" was written down for the first time (that we know of). The first written notice of the castle is from 1397, and it was built a few years before that for the Angulo family, one of the important landowners in the region. The construction is solid and finished with perfection in every angle. Aside from the tower, which is the only thing visible in my photos here, it has a wall and other towers and some usable one-story buildings. It sits on 22,000 square meters of gardens with fruit trees, a stream, a little forest with three century-old oaks, and a large pond. (Perfect for rhinoceros grazing, but we'll think about that later.)

The price, to me, is further justified because it boasts state-of-the-art central heating; a heated swimming pool with geothermal technology, a wave generator, and spa jets; all new plumbing; double-glazed windows; a centralized vacuum cleaning system; satellite telephone system with Wi-Fi, TV in all rooms, and motion detectors in communal areas; five open fireplaces, three of which have inserted cassettes with hot air impellers with insulated stainless steel flues; solid oak beams and stairways; floors made of oak, chestnut, and northern pine; six bed chambers with on-suite bathrooms, two with walk-in wardrobes; three powder rooms; a library; a large refectory; public rooms; a kitchen; and an elevator!

And now the asking price has been reduced to less than three million euros!

This first week of January 2019, I had the chance to visit my castle for the first time, so of course I seized it! Driving north from Burgos, my friend and I were aghast at the constantly changing countryside. Just looking through the window filled me with gratitude. "If you like Castile," said my friend, "it doesn't get any more authentic than this!"

Passing by innumerable Romanesque churches and other castles I don't currently have plans to buy, weaving through the mountains, we at last came around a bend and my castle presented itself to me like a gift from Spain, the entity I've loved longest and hardest. It was apparent that the castle wasn't open to visits from tourists (But I'm not a tourist! I'm the future owner!) before we even parked.

The town surprised me with its lively atmosphere. It lacked the sense of desolation you get in a lot of towns on the Castilian plain, and felt welcoming. We had tea in the bar across from what looked like the castle's front gate, while I was champing at the bit to get outside and take photos and commune with my castle. The lady who made our tea gave us the low-down: Indeed, no one is allowed in the castle unless they intend to put their visit in a high-visibility publication or have documented ability to buy it. Even so, I didn't feel turned away. I had a strong sense of being in the right place, which is something I haven't felt in my life very often.

The castle passed into the Velasco family in the early fifteenth century, a time full of conflicts between nobles and uprisings at all levels. The Velascos had countless castles all over what is now northern Castile, claiming their territory and warning against any and all transgressions of authority. Wouldn't it be ideal to have an invasion of writers and artists in this beautiful space to encourage the sense of peace that now blankets this valley? 

Generous donations graciously accepted, serious investment queries gladly entertained. 

Big Announcement: Açedrex Publishing is Now Ready!

When I got some funding and the blessing of Tom Grundner of Fireship Press, I took the plunge. I have always wanted my own publishing house. The time is now. The result is Açedrex Publishing, a bilingual (English and Spanish) press that I hope will meet the needs of readers and writers alike.

Visit us here: acedrex.com. We're having a big debut party sale!
Please like us on Facebook.
And tell everyone you know (especially readers, writers, and translators).

Thanks for coming on this journey with me. I couldn't do it without my readers and supporters.

This was a big, scary venture that required a lot faith and a lot of work. Here are some highlights from the soundtrack of my life over the past couple of months.

When Chenoa's singing, you know everything will go well!

Madonna can really rock an inspirational song, but here's one of the sassier ones.

When you need every day to be the first day of your life, turn to Los Aslándticos.

And Stacey Q teaches us to seize the moment when the moment is right.

Any success Açedrex has will be the result of even more work, so there's no stopping now! I won't be giving up my own writing, either, so wish me stamina.

Now Published in Six Sentences

The nice folks at Six Sentences surprised me this morning by publishing my little (of course it's little -- it has to be six sentences!) piece about what writers dream about. Check it out here. Don't forget to check the "six-tacular" box at the bottom of the story.

The inspiration for this is pretty clear. I will say that I first wrote it as more of a stream-of-consciousness with no real punctuation and all one sentence, something I had to change in order to aspire to being published in Six Sentences.

I hope "The Writer's Wet Nap Dream" shows readers why writers do what we do. Enjoy!

Rejection and The Place of Dreams in Fiction

I got a rejection letter from Bartleby Snopes a few days ago. First let me explain that Bartleby Snopes is quality in every sense. They do what they love, they do it well, and they do it with attention. They are pretty darn selective, and of course that helps the magazine.

I've been constantly trying to place the story I sent to them ever since I finished it in March. If it hasn't been at one zine, it's been at another. I knew I probably wouldn't have it published in Bartleby Snopes-- I'm just not that cocky-- but it never hurts to try. The reason it doesn't hurt is that Bartleby Snopes stands out for two more reasons: the editor gets back to submissions very quickly (not even two days for me), and he actually tells you a reason why he's not taking it. Non-writers and writers who've never tried to publish in a periodical are often surprised when I tell them that it's highly unusual to get an actual reason along with your rejection notice. In a perfect world, every editor would have the time and energy to explain in a couple of polite sentences why the piece isn't right for her publication at that time, but, the world just isn't perfect.

Anyway, in the scheme of things, I'm thrilled with this rejection letter because it gave me some aspects about the story to consider.

Thank you for submitting to Bartleby Snopes. We appreciate the chance to read your work. Unfortunately, this piece is not for us. This was an interesting read, but it didn't feel focused enough. The glue bit and the spray didn't mesh well for me. It felt almost like there were two different stories here, and the piece wasn't sure which it should tell. The piece also felt a little too restrained. It didn't allow the absurdity to fully develop and take control in a way that made it believable. Definitely a fun read though.

Good luck with this one elsewhere. Please try us again in the future.


Here's the thing: the story was based entirely on a dream. Not "focused enough," fine, but "too restrained"? Who has restrained dreams? I wonder if he means that he wanted the story to go further, and my dream cut off before the absurdity could really take over. Alternatively, he might mean that my conscious mind ought to have taken over, instead of staying so faithful to the dream and its cutoff point. (That would be if he knew I was writing down a dream, but he didn't.)


But here's the other thing: this was a flash fiction piece. It was pushing the traditional 1000-word limit already. If it were going to be a proper short story, I would have approached it from a completely different viewpoint, attack mode, word choice, etc. And maybe I should have...

White rhinoceros and her child in a South African reserve.

But here's the last thing: I really like this story! I can't imagine why no magazine has published it yet! It has a shrinking rhinoceros! I think it's pretty clever how the narrator starts out trying to sell something, witnesses something else bizarre, and then briefly reflects on the worth of the thing he/she was selling. To me, that's literature with something to say! 


Unless you're my husband, you haven't read this story I'm talking about, so I apologize for the impassioned plea in its favor. And I'll let you know when it does get published. 


This story is what it is. Which is not Bartleby Snopes material. But I will try them again in the future, because they're quality.