Editor’s Eye: Beate Sigriddaughter

As a reader, my criteria are simple and subjective: I like what grabs me, what gets under my skin, what makes me feel. The voices here at Fictionaut are so diverse, it almost comes down to something like this: What’s best? A carrot or a hummingbird? If there is a common thread to writing that draws me more than anything else, it is an author’s courage to expose something deeply felt or thought without expectation that it will be popular or attention-grabbing, so long as I can feel the subject matter is meaningful to the author and presented with compassion, whether it be tenderness or horror.

Here are a handful of recent stories that I believe deserved more attention:

Kait Mauro “Five True Things“

A concise capture of a moment of loneliness in relationship.

Loyola Landry “That Place Underneath the Spreading Ficus“

Serene artist encounters muse, then slides into yearning; then obsession spreads; then . . . oh, just read it yourself.

Chris Okum “Martin Sorcese on Jealousy“

I’m blown away by the compelling voice here. I feel like I’m trapped sitting across from the narrator. I kind of want the gift he offers in the first line, but not the rest of the baggage. It’s just too much. I’m mesmerized, and at the same time I want to run as far as I possibly can.

James Knight “Mon in the forest: a fragment“

A collection of fragments (originally tweets) that hang together like a dream with fairy tale qualities, not to mention fairy tale characters. There’s a light-hearted and innocent feeling to this piece. It made me think of the tarot deck fool wandering out into the world with an attitude of “bring it on.”

Eric Sweder “Romance“

A long, well-written study in helpless disbelief as the narrator’s lover slides into neo-Nazism, ending with the narrator derailed into a totally incongruous response to devastation.

Ryan Parks “The Bachelor’s Hymnal“

A crisp explanation of bachelordom.

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Beate Sigriddaughter, www.sigriddaughter.com, lives and writes in Silver City, New Mexico. Her work has received three Pushcart Prize nominations. She has also established the Glass Woman Prize to honor passionate women’s voices.

Editor’s Eye is curated by Michelle Elvy (Fictionaut profile here). She writes and edits every day at michelleelvy.com, and readers can also find her editing Blue Five Notebook (with Sam Rasnake) and Flash Frontier.