On "Dish at Java Juice: A Ten Act Story" by Sweetman (2052 words) ***

When I was around twenty, taking the train across the United States, stopping off in stations along the way, I would sit myself down by the payphones and listen and take notes. I only got to hear half of the conversation, but that half sometimes was an intriguing window into someone else's life. Even now, sometimes, sitting in a restaurant, it can be fun to overhear a conversation. (Or sometimes, it can be annoying.) Perhaps, this is why I prefer to avoid conversation about personal things in public places, as if people I don't know would care.

"Dish at Java Juice" reads like a collection of ten such overheard conversations. In this case, though, they build on one another, so that we get a feel for these characters and people. (For me, the overhearing I'll do is only among strangers--the idea that a story might reside in the things I don't know, the things not placed in the conversation; I don't really want to know about people I know unless they tell me, so I'd be less inclined to listen to a series of conversations like this, knowledge becoming too thick, imagination less so.) But the story stays intriguing nonetheless. Read it here at This.

On "Suspension Bridge" by Dorene O’Brien (3212 words) ****

Reading a story is in part about suspending our disbelief--or at least that's the theory. We create a character, a setting, a place, a list of events. Sometimes, we mix in a few real-life facts. Sometimes we encounter things that are completely impossible. Why are we drawn to such things?

Perhaps, O'Brien seems to be saying, we are drawn to stories that same way we are drawn to people. We like the sense of mystery that is involved with getting to know someone, the possibility that this person might open to us vistas we have only dreamed about, might in fact make our dreams come true.

At a bar, in graduate school, while I was with a roommate, a really pretty girl began talking with us. Beats me why she would have begun flirting with me, but I could tell. She asked me what I was writing my thesis on, and she claimed to have read this person's work. I didn't believe it, for her ignorance on the subject was clear. But she was pretty. Did I play along? No. But my roommate did, creating a past and present for himself, for me too, that didn't exist. I didn't want, that evening, to play the role of artist. Some play that role in print; others, I guess, do it in the dating world. And some write about how those two worlds coincide, such as O'Brien, here at This.