I’ll admit I’m an impatient reader these days. I’m looking for stories to delight me with their language, even more so than the story itself. I want each sentence to be like eating popcorn–every kernel a delight to ingest, so you want to keep going to the end. This is why I like Ben Chadwick‘s “True Love and the Giraffe” so much. [Read more]

Recently:
   Checking In with Deckfight
   Fictionaut Five: Gina Frangello
   Luna Digest, 2/2
   Line Breaks: “The Line” by James Robison

Like all Angi Becker Stevens‘ stories, “If Everything is Inevitable” made me ache just right. I love the imagination and inventiveness here, the tenderness and yearning. [Read more]

Recently:
   Checking in with Short Story Challenge
   Line Breaks: “We” by Mary Grimm
   Fictionaut Five: Susan Tepper
   Luna Digest, 1/19

Like Elizabeth Bishop or Joseph Cornell, Morgan Harlow‘s art is not great but small. An Elizabeth Bishop poem or a Joseph Cornell box reveals a world in miniature and invites us directly in. These two artists offer us layers of art, a sedimentary aesthetic that contain boxes within boxes, riddles wrapped in paradoxes, suffused in mystery-there is a certain indeterminacy in their work that multiplies hermeneutical possibilities and closes off no room for investigation. [Read more]

Recently:
   Checking in with Opium
   Fictionaut Five: Jim Ruland
   Luna Digest, 1/12

On Derek Osborne‘s “Neon Fire”
by Susan Tepper
What captivated me immediately about this little gem of a story is the straightforward way that Osborne presented the characters, place, details and plot. Yet “Neon Fire” is by no means simplistic. It’s a deeply layered, textured story of two people trying to be in love. [read more]

Recently:
   Checking in with First Lines We Love
   Line Breaks: “Shopgirls” by Frederick Barthelme
   Fictionaut Five: Mike Young
   Luna Digest, 1/5

To kick off the New Year, Fictionaut begins a new series, Fictionaut Faves, where Fictionaut members discuss one story they have faved. We thought it would be great way to revisit some wonderful writing that has appeared in the community by offering personal and critical analysis by other writers. Some of the stories may be familiar, others new discoveries, but all share the admiration of their peers. Enjoy!