On "Greyhound" by Meagan Cass (440 words) ***

This story is wound tight. It's about running and about a greyhound and love and how we show it. I'm reminded of how my mother always seemed to be the favorite of the pets we had. As a kid, I was a bit jealous. But moms do seem the best with the animals. Here, running gets played off as a metaphor for not only the dog but for life. Read the story here at Noo Journal.

On "The Body" by Julianna Spallholz (498 words) ****

This short piece seems more a poem than a story to me. But either way, what makes it special is the way the Spallholz makes me reconfigure and reconsider the world by putting everything not in an identity but in a mere body. Suddenly our physical presence seems to hold the most reality. Read the story here at Noo Journal.

On "Batman and Robin" by Kyle Hemmings (1029 words) ***

This is not a pleasant story. In fact, this is a story that I dislike the contents of a lot. It's a story about child exploitation, about taking advantage of someone's need for a friend, about abuse passed from generation to generation. But that's also what makes this story so powerful and so sad. The need becomes perversion, the perversion becomes someone else's need. Read the story here at Noo Journal.