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Editor’s Cut

Andrew Steinmetz June 22, 2010 A new short story.

Photograph by John W. MacDonald

The drugged, antelope gait of the mail carrier, the bloated envelopes, the four hollow horns of a square. Behind curtains, I wait. In the old days, years before this, I would rush to open each envelope, hurriedly poking and sliding the blade of the opener, sometimes snagging the folded query letter. Ah, the editor’s first cut. Typically, thereafter, I would dismantle the author bio and list of previous publications, from the twenty-five page sample, and, with paperclips flying off the walls, go ahead and separate the nastily Xeroxed reviews from the all-important SASE. Self-Absorbed …

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Tenth Anniversary: Spring

ISSUE 43 Tenth Anniversary: Spring 2012

online content:

also in this issue:

  • Face the Music

    by Tim Falconer How can someone who passionately loves music also be a terrible singer? Tim Falconer takes up voice lessons—and discovers the surprising science of tone deafness.

  • The Big Job

    by Deni Y. Béchard As a teenager, Deni Y. Béchard went to Vancouver to live with his father, an ex-con with a penchant for telling tall tales. He met a man desperate to forget the past.

  • The Homesickness of Astronauts

    by Johanna Skibsrud "She felt a great sadness. She would remember next to nothing of this, even soon."
  • [see full issue contents]