I still remember the day I read Susan Tepper’s poem “Course” for the first time: a Saturday in January. [Read more]

Recently:
   Checking in With Smash Cake
   Fictionaut Five: James Kaelan
   Luna Digest, 4/20

“Sanctuary” is my number one favorite of many stories I have read so far on Fictionaut. It is a huge world in a tiny story. It is told with such stunning simplicity and impact that it still has me reeling days after I first read it. [Read more]

Recently:
   Fictionaut Five: Finnegan Flawnt
   Luna Digest, 4/13

James Robison‘s “Mars” is technically flawless. [Read more]

Recently:
   Checking In With AWP
   Fictionaut Five: Gayle Brandeis
   Line Breaks: “The Palatski Man” by Stuart Dybek

The challenge: write a story (or poem) with the words: “just kidding” in them somewhere. The deadline: April Fool’s Day. The amount of work I just did: monumental. [Read more]

Recently:
   Christian Crumlish Joins Fictionaut Board of Advisors
   Fictionaut Five: Luca Dipierro

   Luna Digest, 3/30
   Line Breaks: “My Date with Satan” by Stacey Richter

By Fictionaut standards this is a long story. It glows rather than flashes, but

illuminates nevertheless. [Read more]

Recently:
   Fictionaut Five: Laura Ellen Scott
   Luna Digest, 3/23
   Checking in with April Fools Day Challenge

The story I picked is “The Snowbank” by Shelagh Power-Chopra and the very concept–taken from a life event Shelagh read about evidently–is exquisite: a man finds himself stuck in a snowbank. [Read more]

Recently:
   Checking In With Metazen
   Fictionaut Five: Michael Kimball
   Luna Digest, 3/9

Ms. Manivannan is a master at short story telling, because she knows how much to tell, how much to leave out and when to stop. [Read more]

Recently:
   Line Breaks: “In the Cemetery Where Al Jolson Is Buried” by Amy Hempel
   Fictionaut Five: Darlin’ Neal

I’ve given a lot of faves, more than eighty, some for friends, but most to writers I didn’t know and was pleasantly surprised by. All of them I stand behind, each of us putting together our own anthologies. And for those who don’t know, “recommended stories” can be sorted for “all-time,” where James Robison’s “Mars,” Kathy Fish’s “Spaceman,” and Pia Earhardt’s “Ambulance” crown the heap. [Read more]

Recently:
   Tweetable, 2/27
   Fictionaut

Five: Nicolle Elizabeth
   Line

Breaks: “Credentials” by John Holman

“Infinite Things All At Once” makes you look inside your heart, try to comprehend and sigh. A true gem of a story. [Read

more]

Recently:
   Fictionaut Survey
   Checking in with Second Tongue
   Fictionaut Five: Kirk Farber

In “The Way It Smelled” by Dylan Nice, Buster, a CVS clerk, loses his virginity to Eleanor, a sour-smelling girl with one pink eye. A simple enough premise, but Dylan makes the story idiosyncratic, funny, sweet, innocent, and, above all, awkward to the point of cringe. [Read more]

Recently:
   Checking in with Hypertext Fiction
   Line Breaks: “Pink” by Terese Svoboda
   Fictionaut Five: Jen Michalski