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Orchid – 2005

2005

Biannual

Sima Rabinowitz

Orchid “celebrates stories and the art of storytelling” and it is, indeed, cause for celebration. Here are a dozen rich, pleasing, readable pieces of short fiction; stories to sink your teeth into; stories to lose yourself in. They are wildly different from each other, which makes the volume all the more exciting.

Orchid “celebrates stories and the art of storytelling” and it is, indeed, cause for celebration. Here are a dozen rich, pleasing, readable pieces of short fiction; stories to sink your teeth into; stories to lose yourself in. They are wildly different from each other, which makes the volume all the more exciting. What they have in common, however, is strong, authentic writing and a deep sense of story as urgent, necessary, and vital. There isn’t a sleeper in the issue. I was especially taken with “Jauncy’s Feathers,” by Rebecca Cook, which captures the fascinating ways in which an adolescent’s experience of mental illness manifests itself in the way she uses language; with Laura Krughoff’s “Audra,” a heartwarming story of a mother’s strategies to help her young insomniac daughter get some rest; and with “Accomplice,” a story by Patricia Stiles about a daughter’s experience of her mother’s shoplifting. Orchid also includes several pages of “Afterthoughts” in which the writers share some background on their stories, describe the writing life, advice from a mentor, or name something they wish they had written. [Orchid Literary Review, P.O. Box Box 131457, Ann Arbor, MI, 48113-1475. Single issue $8. www.orchidlit.org]
–Sima Rabinowitz

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