On "Coinkydink" by Chris Kassel (7968 words) ***

Maybe it's all the references to physics, but Kassel's story has the feel and energy of the work of Thomas Pynchon. Imagine that one day you discovered that all of your phone numbers were encrypted in logorhythms? Look up the solution to a mathematical problem, and there's your first phone number; the second solution is your second phone number, and so on. Your name is also the name of someone else's father and of the owner of a Spackling Company--or at least the name advertised as the owner. Such is what happens to Big Mike, the namesake at the center of this narrative who finds himself drawn into such discoveries and suddenly feeling a little bit crazy. But it's all physics, I promise. Read the story here at the Angler.

On "How to Become a Regular" by Courtney Kelsch (604 words) ***

The story as advice column--it's a gimmick used often enough that it's familiar but not so often that it isn't unique each time one sees it. Such stories have a way of standing out, perhaps because the genre is difficult to manage in a way that tells a story. Kelsch's piece here manages to convey a kind of sadness on the part of its narrator--not "you" but "we"--the tired-out waitresses at a diner who wish simply for some other existence. I know the feeling, and the good thing is that most of the time, other lives do come. Most of the time. Read the story here at the Angler.