On "A Million Pieces" by Amye Archer (540 words) ***

This story's a tough one. The piece essentially takes prolife literature and puts it into fiction. But it's really not just a rendition of the disgusting details of an abortion; it's a tale about a woman who lives in abortion day in and day out--not quite a point of view I'd thought much about, nor one I'd want to live. Read the story, formerly published at Emprise Review, here at Fictionaut.

On "Kiss Off" by Richard Thomas (1387 words) ****

Essentially a suicide note written in stages, this story ends in a perfectly grand spot that catches the emotions of the moment and the physical desperation. Each stage is a move toward death both in the act of the suicide and in the motivation toward that suicide. This story, like its title, bears in grief and anger hard. This story wants to be read here at Emprise Review.

On "Innocence" by Summer Block (2904 words) ***

Summer Block's story is about a nun who keeps watch over infants, a nun, I suspect, who would have loved to have children of her own--in fact, in a way does. She is possessive. She is obsessive. She is fascinating. But what really makes this piece shine are the little moments in between, the snatches of insight, like this one, about white flight and the dominance of immigrants in a neighborhood (and at the mission where the nun works): "I worry when I see the faith recede to the ends of the world, all those new converts like the whirl in the last dregs of bath water before it runs down the drain." Or there's the nun's claim that she can love a child just as much as a physical mother, that carrying a baby in one's body is not so important, because "the body is a passing thing." For more such beautiful passages, read the story here at Emprise Review.

On "Where I’m Emailing From" by David Erlewine (634 words) *****

David Erlewine's fiction often centers on neurotic narrators, and that's why it's often so fascinating. Here we get the tale of a passive aggressive husband, an apology that's really, well, not quite what one would expect. Read the story here at the Emprise Review.