On "Angie Gets a Job" by Linda Boroff (3175 words) ****

A friend of mine--six years old--thinks she has the world figured out. Anytime things don't go her way, she cries. Such a tactic works for a child, in part because the adults just don't want to deal with listening to bawling for hours on end. It's tempting to give in.

In a way, Boroff's story is about such a person who has grown up. Angie bawls her way through life, and it gets her what she wants. Sort of. Actually, it gets her a job, but it's not a good job; in fact, it's a rather unsavory one. How is one ever to get ahead in this life? Better start bawling again. Read the story here at Workplace Anthology.

On "Respectful Beatings for Very Good Help" by G. K. Wuori (5220 words) ***

Much is in the details. In G. K. Wuori's short story, two women, newly arrived to the United States, struggle to make sense of the world around them--this American world, this American work world. Expectations regarding what is acceptable and what is not clash. But growing trouble eventually becomes too large even for those used to different standards of behavior. Action must be taken. Enter an insane old man, whose command of riches allows for such problems to be solved.

But I said that much is in the details. Part of the charm of this piece comes from its mastery of the English language--or lack thereof. Our narrator has mastered the language but not yet many of its nuances and turns of phrase, and as a result, the occasional odd phrasing hits just the right note. Read the story here at the Workplace Anthology or here at the Barcelona Review.

On "Publisher" by Corey Mesler (13,702 words) *****

Here's a story that in its youthful enthusiasm for literature and life and the female sex reminds me a little of John Fante. Reading it is a pleasure. But it's a story too of disappointment and of reading and the love of it. Our narrator is a man who wants a job in publishing. Locked out, however, he takes a job at a bookstore. And then, one day, he gets a break. He manages to get a job at . . . a vanity publisher.

But what vanity publishers are to writers they also prove in a way to be to editors. There are prices to be paid. What happens when you get your hands on a good book, one that deserves publication better than what you can offer? How far will you go for literature? And will in the end it matter?

I'm reminded of some of the unpublished work of friends and former classmates that I keep in files at home. Sometimes, I return to visit their stories. Sometimes, over the years, the writing has tarnished; what I thought so good twenty years ago, I now recognize wasn't. But other times, on rereading, I sit back rather amazed--and saddened--that the story never saw the light of day, and the writer gave up. Finding publication for good material (and then actually marketing that publication so that it finds an audience) is hard work, but it also involves a bit of luck. But maybe, in the end, even if only one reader appreciates a given piece, the author has still managed to convey something to do something special. Read the story here at the Workplace Anthology or here at Eclectica.