On "Would You Rather" by James Zerndt (4685 words) ***

Swink isn't a place I go to for science fiction, but here it is, a piece of sci-fi residing in a literary magazine. The nation is short on water, and residents spy on one another to ensure that they aren't absconding with more than their share or overusing electricity. Thomas and Dustin are brothers who serve as cops of a sort, checking on those around them. And like most residents, they're hypocrits of a sort. Thomas likes a gal named Jerusha, who he doesn't report for numerous violations for exactly that reason. Thomas and Dustin are the recipients of extra rations, because their parents aren't around, and they haven't reported the surplus. All comes to a head at the end of the story in a way that makes one wonder if any kind of nobility matters at all. Read the story here at Swink.

On "Happiness You Have to Earn, Not Steal" by Kristy Davis (1759 words) *****

Okay, so this story mixes one narrative line with another to make an obvious statement about both: bedbugs and an old boyfriend. No matter, you can't get rid of them. You obsess about them--how you got them, how they got away. Davis's tale mashes the two up well, but she also has a knack for language that makes this piece more than the sum of its parts. Think dialogue, little lines the narrator remembers, not things we'd find important but this narrator still feels. Think read this story, now, here, at Swink.

On "Liability" by S. P. Tenhoff (5597 words) ****

Stephen Dixon's Interstate is a novel that takes a heartrending event and obsesses over it--over and over and over. Tenhoff's short story does something similar. It's not repetitive in the way that Dixon's book is, and it doesn't go on nearly as long, and in a way that's better. For while Dixon's Interstate is a fascinating exercise, it is a difficult book to actually finish. Tenhoff's story is not.

"Liability" also does some other things nicely as well. The decisions in weekly chess matches are paired against the decisions made while driving (a single point can send a given match to its inevitable close ten moves down). The main character's worry over his own son is matched against the worry over the boy that his car hits. His drinking becomes a matter of concern--or doesn't.

What Tenhoff manages particularly well here, however, is getting into the mind of a man who has done something accidental but horribly life changing. The writing is listless to start, then it increasingly focuses on issues of liability and of guilt. Who is at fault? Could it very well be the man's fault? Add in small details about insurance bureaucracy and you have the makings of something that seems almost real Read the story here at Swink.

On "Rise" by L. Annette Binder (1186 words) ****

Here's one to send chills through you. The story is in the elision, and I am, for one, thankful that elision is there. Who wants to see the grisliness that occurs? This piece is more harrowing for what we don't see, and for the remains that come back to the surface. Read the story here at Swink.

On "Bedsheets and Typewriter Keys" by Karissa Morton, "New York Postcard Sonnet #85" by Philip Dacey, and "Vocation" by Sandra Beasley ****

Morton's poem is full of metaphor, the main one of which is in the title itself. To think of the body as a typewriter, quite lovely really. Type your words on me. Be nice. Read here at Writers' Bloc.

A sonnet I particularly like is one that gives short TV Guide-like synopses of Shakespeare plays. Dacey's is one that captures overheard parts of conversations, lines that are intriguing passages into possible stories all by themselves. Oh, to find sonnet material as interesting as this. Read it here at Serving House Journal.

Sandra Beasley's "Vocation" explores the subject of what people do for a living, reworking the tired phrases that we have come to associate with work to create something new and exciting and, well, funny. And if Freud is right, we laugh because somehow an uncomfortable truth is revealed. Her other poem, "Story" starts with an interesting quote and takes off from there. Read the poems here at Swink.

On "Pigeons in Real Life" by Nancy Conger (1837 words) ****

Swink was on of my favorite literary journals based on its main page, which never updated. And in that was much sorrow. It showed up, stuck around, and then stopped publishing. But that changed in January 2010. It's back, and putting out good stuff again.

One of those good things is this story here. The trouble with nightmares is that when we're in a nightmare, we rarely stop to think that they aren't real. And somehow, nightmares seem all the more heinous when we are children. Conger milks these facts in this piece, presenting us with Andrew, a kid who can't tell reality from dream. And neither, in a sense, can we, since the two worlds don't seem all that different. And that's what makes this piece so horrifying. Read it here at Swink.

On "What to Do" by Sean Ennis (3111 words) ****

Build a story around a psychic girlfriend and don't be afraid of making statements that will offend someone (Ennis is an equal-opportunity offender), and you have the makings of something compelling. The psychic sees everything coming, but you'll read on anyway. Read it here.