On "Dirt in the Blood" by Joshua Canipe (4585 words) ***

Canipe's tale is one of violence and love and the way that the two can transform one another and inform one another. The narrator comes from a military family, a set of men who are used to killing foreigners and who also are used to playing hero. If a woman has trouble, the men will protect her, even if it means going to jail. The narrator is not this sort. He's a medical student. There's no fight in him. So when his girlfriend gets beaten up, questions of love arise. What does protecting a loved one mean? And what are the excusable forms of violence? Read the story here at Trigger.

On "Tactics" by Matthew Brennan (199 words) ***

Here's a short tale on loneliness and longing. It reminds me a bit of a Richard Brautigan poem about a widow hoping it's cold enough to bother the neighbors about wood (my summary is probably longer than the poem). Here, we have a wife making coffee for her husband--or not. Read the story here at Trigger.

On "Prison Girls" by Emily Alford (8070 words) ****

The child--or in this case, the young teen--offers a great perspective for stories. That combination of naivete and the hard situations of life is compelling, especially because stories generally focus on moments of change, on moments where that naivete is broken, replaced by some deeper understanding of the world around. Because of this potential, the story about the child is used often--and often not to very good effect.

Alford's tale, however, is not one of those. This is a tale where the child's perspective works perfectly. Madison is a consummate liar, sent to a boarding school by her parents and her psychologist to overcome her bad habit. She also doesn't like anyone--or life in general. She's about to learn some very tough lessons, however, at the instigation of a Ukrainian janitor. Think "Boy Cries Wolf" but with the complexity of a Dickens novel. Read the story here at Trigger.