On "Victorious" by Claudia Smith (655 words) ***

A child's point of view makes for a disparity in stories that is often engaging--and likely why writing from a youth's perspective is so popular. Basically, you have a built-in means of showing only the surface but hinting at something much greater--you know, of following old Hemingway's trick of only showing the tip of the iceberg. Children are so innocent they often don't realize the real trouble lurking below all those superficial gestures. The problem, though, is that most adults, by the time they're writing such stories, know what's beneath the surface, so reclaiming that childhood perspective can be tough. Smith does a great job here, telling the story of a family of wanderers, parents whose hopes have been dashed repeatedly and children who still think the world is big and beautiful and full of possibility. Read the story here at Frigg.

On "Virgins" by Claudia Smith (2060 words) ***

"I wasted it"--the words sting. And in a sense, they're the heart of this piece. Two girls who can share everything about each other. It's that portion of life when you're discovering for the first time, as adults. It's that portion of life when a good friend to share it with is the most wonderful thing in the world. Claudia Smith captures it well. Read the story here at Juked.

On "Hook" by Claudia Smith (2307 words) ***

Mention the word "Hook," and I think of that poem by Margaret Atwood, the way she twists that word from something sexy to something dreadful and harrowing. This story does a similar thing. You start out thinking you're reading about some girl picking up a guy, then maybe a girl picking up a guy for someone else, then . . . It just gets worse--it just gets creepy. But it hooks you, makes you read on, until you come to the dreadful, unexpectedly quiet end. Read it here at Storyglossia.

On "Boy, a Cat, a Lifeboat" by Claudia Smith (641 words) ****

The Web site A Boy, a Cat, a Lifeboat is devoted to one concept--stories involving these three things, a play on Yan Martel's novel The Life of Pi, for which Martel was accused of stealing the idea. The Web site rightly shows that ideas aren't things one can protect, that one concept can be taken any number of directions. Each of the stories on the site are interesting in their own way, but among them, Smith's is my favorite. It conveys loss so strongly in just a bit over six hundred words. Sure, tigers are involved, as is a boy. The lifeboat is metaphorical--and a strong metaphor at that. At the start, the boy's mother thinks of herself as a lifeboat, but by the end she's looking for one. Read the story here at A Boy, a Cat, a Lifeboat.

On "Groove" by Claudia Smith (347 words) ****

Flash fiction, when as quick as this, demands keen attention to the detail of a moment. Smith does something wonderful with this short piece, building up to that moment with a list of details from early in a relationship, leading finally to a moment later on when the relationship becomes sort of commonplace--but also completely new--and wonderful. Read the story here at Quick Fiction.

On "Company" by Claudia Smith (310 words) ****

A good piece of flash fiction packs so much into its words that you're left wondering exactly what happened, exactly how it made you laugh or jump or cry. This piece's wallop occurs in the last line, hinting at something deeper than you might imagine this story is at first directed toward, something that made me tingle a little bit in a bad way--good stuff. Read the story here at the Cortland Review.