On "The Relative Weight of Angels" by Avril Breckenridge Barron (5940 words) ***

Here's a story about death in various forms--the death of pets, the death of siblings, the death of children. Here's a story about what it means to be one of the ones left behind, one of the ones who's going to be left behind again and again and again, because, after all, you're the youngest. How do we survive this mess? Everyone has their own coping mechanism. Read a few of them here at Carve Zine.

On "What You've Done For Me" by John S. Walker (4185 words) ***

This story is about things that are slowly running out of control. Each of the major characters can see events coming toward them, trouble that will be part of their lives. And yet, there's a certain helplessness in the face of that trouble. Struggle as they might against fate, they're doomed to fulfill it. Strange how one can get all of this out of a single bar conversation, a man's brother and that man's wife, two marriages running out of steam, two men that want back out in the world, only one that will make it. Read the story here at Carve magazine.

On "The Ways You Are Gone" by Kami Westhoff (3804 words) ***

Somewhere in the middle of this story we get the rundown of a life that could have been--all of it within a week. It's poetry. The life that could have been is fairly mundane, something out of an Updike novel, and yet--for someone who has gone through an incredibly emotional experience that will never actually end--it's also the stuff of dreams. How many of our dreams really are simply a simple life? Read that potential life here at Carve Magazine.

On "Customer of Size" by Mary Jones (2169 words) ***

Here's how I'd expect a story about an overweight customer who is put through the indignity of having to "try out" a seat to find out whether he'll have to purchase two (something tells me an airline would be better off just placing a weight limit on the ticket itself at the time of purchase so as to make the problem less personal): I expect anger. I expect shouting and lost tempers and fights. But that's the beauty of this piece. We don't get the expected. Instead, we have a man who knows he's gotten too large and who takes all of the sad indignity in stride--and who in the process manages to teach others a few lessons in humility. Read the story here at Carve Magazine.

On "Indelible Ink" by Elizabeth Corcoran (6555 words) ***

Slap Elvis in a story or a movie, and there's an automatic kitsch factor, but also--at least for me--an odd hypothetical appeal. I say "hypothetical" because I am not actually an Elvis fan, and although I've played with the idea of going to see an Elvis impersonator a few times, I've never actually gotten around to doing it. Such a visit seems more interesting hypothetically than I fear it would be in real life, just as going to see a beauty pageant does or attending a Star Trek convention. I fear, after the first few minutes, my curiosity satiated, I'd find myself bored and wanting to leave. (I could be wrong--a trip to a wrestling match a few years ago proved to be a highlight of the year.)

Perhaps, one of the graceful marks of Corcoran's story is that she has actually induced me to want to see Elvis's homeplace. I had the opportunity, certainly, having lived in Oxford, Mississippi, and having taken several trips into Memphis for various "big city" needs. (Memphis was not a city I enjoyed, which in turn probably colored any remote desire I may have even had to see Elvis's home. I listened with pleasure to people who talked of their visits to Graceland II, in Holly Springs--trips they enjoyed even more than trips to the original Graceland--but such stories never compelled me to actually want to go inside, this despite actually being directly outside the place one evening with time to spare, for what reason I don't remember.)

But also at work here, in Corcoran's piece is something about friendship and home and the choices we make that may have indelible consequences. And those themes, of course, are more important than any kitsch that forges the surface portion of a story. Read the piece here, at Carve Magazine.