On "Wants What It Wants" by Bram Shay (978 words) ***

I featured this short piece by Bram Shay largely for its description of a bar. Setting is everything here--a place where women come to scout each other out, and more pitifully men come to simply watch. Different from the way one might expect a setting to be so effective, Shay doesn't do it so much in the description of the place (though that is there), but in the description of the kind of people who are in this place and the things going on. Truly, the narrators' are observers. Read the story here at SFWP.

On "The Easter Bunny" by Benjamin Dancer (2996 words) ****

I generally avoid novel excerpts when reading online stories, just as many editors avoid them when selecting stories for publication--though I'd say, in general, that too few avoid them. Excerpts usually don't work as independent pieces. They don't measure up as stories. Stuff is missing. Plots go nowhere or leave us dumbfounded at the start or end. Dancer's "The Easter Bunny" is an exception. I've not read a piece with this much tension in a long while. The constant repetition of "I'll have a Budweiser" ups the ante each time it's said. As readers, we wait for things to explode. And then the story goes where we never would have expected. Read the story here at SFWP.