Thomas Brennan's Pick:
An Iris a Week by Eric Marin
She sits and looks, dry-eyed, at an iris, at its purple and yellow stillness held in place by a crystal vase.The iris holds within its petals age-yellowed memories — memories of evening dances, of shared laughter, and of deepening love...
Barbara Jacksha's Pick:
The Only Time I Saw My Mother When I Grew Up by Nanette Rayman
i ran my Mauve Amour fingernail
over her unchipped windowsill
under-ripe tomatoes, green-red
hard as avacados — these she fawns
over, putting them to light, tells
me to hold on, learn patience...Debi Orton's Pick:
Brillig by Jacob Garbe
What have you done, Alice. What have you done.Haven't you read the fairy tales? Not the saccharine-sweet diluted happy ever-afters. The real ones. Where evil step-sisters get their heels chopped off, and the children eat the witches, grimmer than Grimm, back when the nonsense was there for a reason. For your protection...
Vanitha Sankaran's Pick:
The Cathedral of Lost Faces by Bruce Boston
Nothing can hide the hump he carries. His broad stature and twisted face. His shadow needs no distortion to appear grotesque. He is an ape with a weight upon his back, pressed down by human pain...David Shapiro's Pick:
The Summer Postwoman by Arlene Ang
On sun-fringed days she comes, her smile
nurtured for younger men. Decadent in
lilac halter top and matching jeans, she
yanks her powder-blue motorbike from the curb...Didi Woods's Pick:
By the Heart by Doug Rennie
A downtown restaurant in a large North American city. Lunch hour, and the restaurant is nearly full. A man walks in. He is dressed in an impeccably cut dark suit. In one hand, he carries a folded newspaper and a guidebook, in the other an expensive leather briefcase...