Jake Freivald, Editor

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Let’s cut to the chase.

“Branwen’s Revenge” is a retelling of an ancient story from the Mabinogion, a collection of Welsh tales collected in the middle ages. The author, Sarah Adams, teaches medieval literature, so the story is close to her heart; however, the ending is a little ambiguous and touching, and keeps it out of the realm of high fantasy.

“Atypical Research” by Shelly Rae Rich is quirky literary story about a scientifically minded man who is confronted by his antithesis. The language eddies about in interesting ways, lending the text a little of the enjoyable confusion that the main character feels. I also really like the art on this one: It’s Gustav Klimt’s The Kiss, “created” from the human genome. Though perhaps the symbolism is a little heavy-handed, I think the art itself is an experiment that worked. Tell us what you think in the comments. Click on the image in the story to get a larger, higher-fidelity version.

“At Both Ends” is K.C. Ball’s story about the meaning of being a superhero. I came to love Spiderman through thousands of pages of comic books and hundreds of minutes of movie-watching; K.C. made me feel for her superhero in just a few words.

Bruce Holland Rogers returned from his brief hiatus to provide us with “Visions of Gingerbread,” a story that he originally published in the science fiction magazine Analog. It’s an exemplar for this month’s column on writing the short-short story, which continues his discussion of the “MICE quotient” (Milieu, Idea, Character, and Event).

Finally, we reached back to the late 19th century for a short-short story called “The Kiss” by Kate Chopin. I won’t call it “flash” because it’s 1032 words, which just overreaches our definition, but cut her some slack — she died 103 years before I decided to set my word limit. Besides, it’s well worth reading — a little daring for her time, and still intriguing in ours.

That’s it for the stories. Meanwhile, thanks to those who contributed money to the magazine, especially Susan Lange, Charles Gramlich, and Anne Savoie. We currently operate at a loss, and those donations help make the loss a bit less.

Our next issue will go live on July 2nd. As always, we’re out on Twitter and Bill Highsmith continues to blog about funny and intriguing topics, so we’ll be in touch. Meanwhile, go read some great stories!