Glimmer Train Stories 88 Author:Laura van den Berg, Joseph O'Malley, Tom Kealey, Michael Deagler, Louis Gallo, Kim Brooks, Aja Gabel, Karen Brown, Stefani Nellen, Danielle Lazarin, Peter LaSalle, D. Seth Horton (interviewer) Literary short stories by established and emerging writers.Laura van den Berg — Antarctica — "You want to know the truth?" Luiz said. "Your brother was a beaker." "A what?" "A beaker. A scientist who can't get along with others." Joseph O'Malley — The Manly Man's Guide to Virtue — "I'm not some ... Hallmark card up here spouting easy nostrums for y... more »our benefit. You're all ugly, too. We're all ugly. But we each have a tiny part of us where beauty and love live. Find it." Tom Kealey
The Lost Brother
I went and checked my brother out. He was dripping wet, and in his face I could see my mom. His hair was all short, stuck to his head. "Are you going to hit me?" he said. "I'm thinking it." Michael Deagler
Etymology
My dad said Jones was a good name because it makes you like everyone else. I'm feeling very Jones right now. This whole alley is feeling very Jones. Louis Gallo
Stooges in Paradise
But somewhere along the genomic line, worry and anxiety and foreboding tainted our ganglia cells. We co-exist in low grade panic most of the time, which occasionally accrues and explodes into full blown hysteria. Kim Brooks
Year's Time
He couldn't move. He could barely swallow. He couldn't remember what it was that had once made him believe in God, or in himself, or in anything at all. Aja Gabel
In the Time of Adonis
I'm always shocked at the boldness of my friends' mothers. My own mother, too. It's as if they've forgotten what embarrassment is, in the sameness of their family lives. Or maybe they want revenge, on the embarrassment wrought by their own mothers. Karen Brown
Georgetown
But now she remembered those weeks of bliss, the baby at her breast, the smell of her own milk on the sheets, the books on how to bathe, and feed, and tend spread out on the bed, the Mystery Train's passing at night, its plaintive whistle, its flash of brightness and hope. Stefani Nellen
Men in Pink Tutus
"That's what he did. He ran away from his family, and he started wearing a costume. These are the facts. This is what we have to work with." Danielle Lazarin
Spider Legs
Some saints didn't really exist, except through art and images and stories, through the collective imaginings of those who wanted to believe in them. Peter LaSalle
Interview by D. Seth Horton
But what I mean is that there's intense transport for both the writer while writing a short story, and ideally the reader while reading one.« less