On "Poetry Pool Party" by Megan Martin (50 words) ***

More a humorous thought than a story, Martin here contemplates an invite to the titular event. Somehow, methinks said party would be more intriguing than she lets on. Not long ago, just weeks before my wedding, I went to do a reading, the first in a decade. I had attended readings, but I hadn't done one myself in a long while. It was a great deal of fun, and at least one of the writers (not me) read something that was truly entertaining and rather mindblowingly good. Afterward, a slate of us all went out for drinks--and for talking literature. Ah, the people there--mostly idealistic twentysomethings--it was nice to think literature important again and that we all were destined to have a part in it. That's what I imagine a poetry pool party would look like. Read the story here at Wigleaf.

On "(pro) ANA" by Jamy Bond (972 words) ***

Here's one person's take on an eating disorder and self-improvement. It's a great example of a story that shows rather than tells. Read it here at Wigleaf.

On "Hot Tub Doomsday" by Megan Martin (239 words) ****

The converse of Martin's "Poetry Pool Party," this is a tale of professors gathered in a hot tub to talk about, well, how nothing really matters. Literature is dead. It's all been said, and said better. This piece wouldn't be so much fun if it weren't in a hot tub. But then, most things are a bit more fun in a hot tub. Read the story here at Wigleaf.

On "Cowboys And" by Rumaan Alam (549 words) ****

A strange set of recollections about strangers--at a party with someone who doesn't know you, in a foreign country, in a passing vehicle. Alam here makes poetry of each incident. Is it a story? I don't know, but it's nice writing. Read the piece here at Wigleaf.

On "That's Him! That's the Guy!" by Dan Chaon (605 words) ****

If I were to write about creating a short story, I might just this as an example of the perfect form. Chaon starts with an image, an idea, and circles back around to it at the end but with a different meaning, and that, in essence, is what many stories, many poems, do in some way. Here, a family deals with the death of a father, grows apart, and years later reunites around the same event (of sorts). Read it here at Wigleaf.

On "Sundays" by Tawnysha Greene (211 words) ****

What a wonderful little short piece this is. My mom always used curlers, so it was a different sort of experience when I went to visit aunt and cousins, who were devotees of the curling iron and the hairspray. Greene captures such morning rituals perfectly here. But she does something even more interesting with the closing of the eyes. This story does what a good flash often does, bringing disparate things together. Read it here at Wigleaf.

On "Backslide" by Meghan Austin (578 words) ***

So Austin tells love stories. We've been here before. This one is about all those conversations we have with other people about their breakups, about the people they keep going back to . . . or hearkening back to, how a relationship is so much better in our memory. Read this one over here at Wigleaf if just for the fun of listening in to all the sordid tales. Go on. I know you want to.

On "How He Felt" by Amelia Gray (280 words) ***

In this very short piece, a man struggles with how to get across his feelings to the world. Gray's story hints at the quintessential problem of artists--be it painters, musicians, or writers--everywhere. Only a few artists ever see their work take on the sort of emotional power in others they would hope for, and yet beyond that, because each person experiences things uniquely, it's not necessarily the same feeling. But we can delude ourselves into thinking it is--and maybe that's enough. Read the story here at Wigleaf.

On "One of These Things Is Not Like the Other" by Stephanie Johnson (480 words) ***

Here's a story of loss and the manner in which it can affect seemingly disconnected people. I've never experienced something quite akin to this, but I have experienced the loss of a friend who was still alive, and that--that breakup--can be in some ways more haunting than a death. You think on failures, on what-ifs, on how maybe something you'd done differently might have salvaged what was there. People who have children abducted and then never know the final result; spouses who lose spouses to the MIA list in war--these is the themes of this story. Read it here at Wigleaf.

On "A Sigh Is Just a Sigh" by Sean Lovelace (1050 words) ***

Here's an interesting short piece, a musing on film and sleeping and doors and dreams. I'm really not sure what to think of it, but sections of it sing, lines from it shine. Bogart on your futon? Asking him if he wants Pop Tarts? Really interesting. But really, this is just an excuse to mention another Sean Lovelace piece, in the Sonora Review (not online), about nachos, " Someone Emailed Me Last Night and Asked if I Would Write About Nachos"--one of the best pieces of writing I've read this year. Read Lovelace's story about Casablanca here at Wigleaf, then go out and get yourself a copy of the Sonora Review.