Bob Dylan launches Patreon for historical writing

Bob Dylan has launched a Patreon account for his own historical fiction. Users can purchase access to Dylan's posts for $5 per month.

It's an unexpected move from 84-year-old Dylan, whose legendary songwriting earned him the 2016 Nobel Prize in Literature. Though his work has often veered into historical topics, he has yet to explore fanfiction, much less via subscription model.

On Sunday, March 29, Dylan took to his Instagram stories to post an old-fashioned, seemingly AI-generated graphic advertising the Patreon account.

"Lectures from the grave," it reads. "The dead speak starting today!"

@bobdylan via Instagram.

The current featured lectures include "Last Testament of Frank James", "Aaron Burr: The Art of Survival", and "The Life and Death of Wild Bill." These audio recordings, some of which are over an hour long, take the perspective of these long-dead historical figures.

Like his Instagram story graphic, the monotone narration of these lectures bears a resemblance to AI, though it remains unconfirmed whether or not AI was used.

Two of the lectures were teased via Instagram in previous months, pre-Patreon launch. Listen below.

 

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Dylan's "Letters Never Sent" series, advertised as "From Poe to Valentino, etc.", will imagine scenarios that introduce public figures who grew up during different times.

The first post, a letter from author Mark Twain to Italian actor Rudolph Valentino, is curiously written under the pen name of Herbert Foster.

"Dear Mr. Valentino," it begins, "I take up my pen under circumstances that would puzzle the calendar and embarrass the undertaker, for I am told that both of us have already completed the respectable business of dying."

"Yet if letters can cross oceans, perhaps they may also cross that lesser boundary which divides the living from the historically inconvenienced."

There are currently six posts on the Patreon: one "Letter Never Sent", three lectures, a short story called "Bull Rider" attributed to pen name Marty Lombard, and a video of Mahalia Jackson performing.

You can check out Dylan's Patreon account here.