On "The Believers" by Laurie Blauner (2256 words) ***

Before my first college creative writing class, I was largely a fan of writing that was simple and straightforward, at least on the surface. Think Carver, Hemingway. But my first creative writing teacher saw things differently. She wanted sentences, beautiful lines that had never been part of the English language before. She was a lyricist. And so, for a time, I became one too. Sometimes I wax wordy and poetic in my writing even today, but it's rare. I've largely returned to that more simplistic form.

But what I have gained is an appreciation for the writer who can string along sentence after sentence I have never heard before. Blauner does just that here, in this tale about a woman taking care of her mother at a rest home, a mother who has some form of dementia, and about the nursing home's trip to a faith healer that fails to heal much of anyone. But the tale isn't really the point here. The point is sentences and words, nouns taking on new verb forms; verbs taking on new noun forms. A woman enters a room, "soft parts first." "Unapologetic canes teeter" at doorways. Over and over here, language is reinvented, and I'm a little richer for it. Read the story here at Superstition Review.

On "Salesmen" by Tyler Sage (3451 words) ***

Sage's story is a bit of metafiction, a framed story within various other framed stories. It's also a story of morals, a story about things we learn from life: how fear holds us back, how lonely we are, and how we can be free in loving another. But with regard to storytellers, more often than not--salespersons of their own sort--the lessons remain unlived. Read the story here at Superstition Review.

On "Canada" by Laura Breitenbeck (1580 words) ****

The old cliche is that women like bad boys. And certainly, in this short tale, that seems the case. Bad boys--and the nation of Canada--become the place of dream and imagination to a girl bored by her comparatively safe surroundings. We want what we don't--and what we can't--have. Read the story here at Superstition Review.

On "The Only" by Courtney Elizabeth Mauk (4233 words) ****

Lynne is a hotel maid with something of a love for other people's lives--or more specifically, for what they leave behind. She's also one to love the men who get left behind, men like Benny, who has a wrap sheet and a reputation that should warn Lynne to stay away. But as with the hotel guests whose lives she peaks into and sometimes steals from, Lynne is about to go burrowing right along--and straight into trouble (and more trouble and more). Read the story here at the Superstition Review.