BELFAST — The publication of a collection of stories of nightmare and fantasy for adults, written and illustrated by Maine’s Dahlov Ipcar, children’s author and artist, was announced this week by North Country Press. The book, “Nightmare and Her Foal,” is the first collection of short stories for adults by Ipcar. It will be published Oct. 24.

Ipcar’s imagination and use of vibrant colors in her paintings mark some 30 books she has written and illustrated for children since 1947. “`The Nightmare and Her Foal,’ however, reveals a new Ipcar,” North Country Press publisher Bill Johnson said. “Her colors remain rich, but in this book they appear in words rather than on canvas, and her vivid imagination is put to a deeper and darker use.”

The publisher noted that some of the stories will chill the reader, some will amuse and some will touch the heart. Ipcar herself described the stories as depicting “… strange things that occur in ordinary life and that have rational explanations without, except for one, quite stepping over the border into fantasy.”