On "Blubber Boy" by Julie Innis (2101 words) ***

Julie Innis grabbed me from the first sentence--or maybe from the title. The story is about guy working in landscape and about a kid who tortures him--or who he tortures. It's hard to know where this story is going during the first half or so, and that's part of what makes it so good. And then there's this--the main character, someone we can sympathize with, confronted with a situation in which he is uncertain whether to do the right thing or the thing that will benefit him the most (and there's a lot lying on that other thing). I felt my sympathies in this story shifting, which is what gives it its power. Read the story here at JMWW.

On "Chowbang" by Pete Pazmino (2855 words) *****

This story made me laugh--out loud. That doesn't happen so much when I'm reading, not as much as I think it should. But that's not the only reason this story is such a keeper. It also channels a voice, a character, in ways that few stories do. I came away feeling like I knew this girl--this sort of female machismo hiding a little bit of vulnerability that she won't show us for a second. Read the story here at JMWW. (A warning to those who might want to stay clear of such things: this story contains adult themes and language, more so than most of the stories I've profiled.)

On "My Father's Fear" by Merle Drown (409 words) ***

Here's a short short that does what good short shorts do. It manages to tell a story, to reveal a change, that happens in a very short moment. And it whallops with the final line. Think about this story as something longer--throw in some extra memories, a few odd characters. It wouldn't work as well, or at least, it wouldn't work as the same story. I think that's when you know an author has managed to pull off the often-difficult short short. Read the story here at JMWW.

On "Salinka Mura and the Typewriter" by Charles Talkoff (910 words) *****

Simply put, I love this story. It's Richard Brautigan silly, but like the best of Richard Brautigan's short stories, it makes some kind of odd sense and even manages to carry a plot. Talkoff turns a typewriter into a literal object. Okay, I guess typewriters are literal objects, so I'm not making a lot of sense. But what I mean is that he turns the whole essence of a typewriter--not just the physical thing itself but also the things it does--into an object. It's beautiful. It makes me want to be a typewriter. Or actually, I think I'd rather be Salinka Mura so I could have beautiful things written on me--or rather, typed. Read the story here.

On "My Brother Picks Cans" by Mark R. Dursin (3512 words) ***

Okay, so let's talk about story subgenres. You know, like stories about marriages going bad, stories about moms dying, stories about first times. This is a brother story. And I think I'm probably a sucker for such pieces. I'm remembering a story in Marshall Boswell's The Trouble with Girls and another story in Ryan Harty's Tell Me Your Saddest Arizona. Brother stories, and I liked both--in fact, thought that in each case the story was one of the best in the collection. And here's another good brother story. This doesn't quite match the level of Boswell or Harty, but it's well done. Maybe I just wish I had a brother or wish I had a sibling who was closer to me. Or maybe such stories remind me of being young. I don't know. What I do know is how Dursin managed to get me interested in his story before any of the other stories in the latest JMWW. It was a series of declarative sentences, fairly simple. No sparks, no odd phrases that made me think, what's up? Or maybe the opening did make me think, what's up. What's up with picking cans and why is that so important that people would notice? The story goes from there, giving readers a pretty good entry into the life of these two brothers. This isn't a story that's going to knock your socks off or anything, but it is nice, and it sounds, for the most part, "real"-- you know, genuine. And sometimes, that's better than all the pyrotechnics a writer might be able to muster. You can read the story for yourself here.