On "The Randomness of Love" by Xujun Eberlein (5659 words) ****

There is a freedom that single people have that is not entirely understood until a person is married. A single woman or man sometimes can hang out with a set of married men, but place the person with just one man or woman, the situation suddenly has an element of danger. The married person is on guard. It is this guard that Eberlein explores in this story and the way in which lust and love can spring from inconvenient places. Read the story here at Storyglossia.

On "Decline" by Melanie Browne (2342 words) ****

Browne's tale is about the imagination, the way we can live in the world of celebrity, putting on to them troubles and triumphs we might wish were part of our own world. Things seem bigger on a stage. What I like so much about the story, however, are the set of fan letters that our rock musician receives. They're from one deluded and lonely person (to another, we might say). The letters are fascinating and hilarious, full of things we would probably never write to one another--and full of secrets, obsessions and otherwise. I'm reminded a bit of the letters at the start of Nathaniel West's Miss Lonelyhearts. Those too descend to ridiculous depths. Here, however, they're all from one mind to another. Read the letters and the accompanying story here at Storyglossia.

On "Alice" by Kate Axelrod (610) words ***

A letter brings unintended consequences. That's the simple way to summarize this story. It's the unforeseen consequence at the heart of this piece that makes it so memorable, so utterly awful, so discomforting. Alice discovers she has more in common with a neighbor than she realized--is in fact perhaps better off. Read the story here at Storyglossia.

On "A Simple Explanation" by Lauren Becker (422 words) ***

I hate meeting people. I love it. The desires both to meet and to crawl into a whole and never talk to a stranger again fight against one another. I know where Becker is coming from, this hopelessness, this feeling of "don't even bother." It happens to me sometimes, when I'm talking to someone who seems fantastic and interesting. I know in the end it won't work--or I talk myself into that position. Why try? Why indeed? Read this little gem of hopelessness here at Storyglossia.

On "Hook" by Claudia Smith (2307 words) ***

Mention the word "Hook," and I think of that poem by Margaret Atwood, the way she twists that word from something sexy to something dreadful and harrowing. This story does a similar thing. You start out thinking you're reading about some girl picking up a guy, then maybe a girl picking up a guy for someone else, then . . . It just gets worse--it just gets creepy. But it hooks you, makes you read on, until you come to the dreadful, unexpectedly quiet end. Read it here at Storyglossia.

On "Sketch of a Relationship" by Yuvi Zalkow (2637 words) ***

Here's a nice one about about a relationship, an all too familiar one--the doubts early on, the doubts in the middle, the doubts that will never stop for as long as the relationship lasts. Why do we ever even bother loving or falling in love when all that results seems to be a lot of questioning of the other person's motives, of our own value as a human being? Zalkow shows us "scenes" from this relationship, little glimpses into it, by pulling out random days over the course of a year. The form works well for its subject matter. And the "sketch" part, it ends up working on more than one level. If I were discussing this story, that's probably where I'd begin, what I'd think about most, the meaning of a sketch and how this piece fills that meaning. Read the story here at Storyglossia.

On "Any Given Monday" by Laurie Koozer (6409 words) ***

This story really hooked me. It's also got me thinking about sending panties out to random people (the only problem would be buying them--I don't think, as a guy, I can pass off the thin sister thing as that would probably be kind of creepy). One does have to wonder what could possibly go right in this poor lady's life, however. Read the story here at Storyglossia.

On "Crowbar" by Joshua Capps (5809 words) *****

For all the mention of how many 9/11 stories there are, I haven't seen a lot of them, not in fiction, that is. Maybe editors are keeping them away from us. Maybe this is wise. I could see the subject easily being overdone. And I could easily see it being treated with too much sentimentality--today's soap opera classic. Joshua Capps's "Crowbar" definitely isn't sentimental. In fact, I think some people might even find it offensive, though Capps gets away with it because it's not Capps who's potentially offensive but the character at the heart of this story. But it's this character, this no-holds-barred selfish character who makes the story so readable, so interesting, so harsh, so sad. Read the story here at Storyglossia.