Year of the LitMag: Five Points, Vol. 14 No. 2

[Note: this is the latest entry in my Year of the LitMag series. If you would like to contribute to the series, leave a comment below or shoot me an email.]
Volume 14 No. 2 of FivePoints just arrived, and it's filled with work by an impressive array ofwriters, including poets Mary Oliver, Billy Collins, Mary Jo Salter, DavidKirby, Dan Albergotti, and others. Plus there's a very interesting interviewwith Kirby by Tom Hunley. I also liked the art portfolio—it seems fewer journalsare doing that these days, and it must be expensive—consisting a series ofphotographs by Chris Verene. They tell quite a story all by themselves.
As usual, I'll concentrate on the fiction. There are four short stories, which for the most part Ienjoyed. They also show a fair amount of variety.
The first story, "The Boat on the Lake," by Lynn Stegner, isquite long, 26 printed pages. It's a traditional story—nothing experimentalabout its form or language—about a husband and wife and their two sons. Thehusband is sick and his brother has come to help the family out, but there's some attraction between the wife and the brother. There's also a neighbor—ahandyman—who plays an important role: "Emory was a broth of a fellow,impossibly shy, his hands always stealing into his pockets, his head slingingsideways whenever it was time to name a fee for his various services, his thickcurly hair long to his shoulder not for any reason other than that he hadn'thad time to get it cut." Great description—"a broth of a fellow." Although I enjoyed the story, it feels rather long for what it achieves.
Mark Winegardner's "Agent Halvorsen Addresses the SpaceCoast Optimists" suggests that the editors don't mind a little formalexperimentation. The story takes the form of a speech, which itself is said to bean artifact left to a college library found among the speakers effects. In the speech, Agent Halvorsen gives thestory of his career, which had its ups and downs, to say the least. It's an innovative piece.
"Giveaway" by Lauren Watel seems, at first, like a familiarpost-partum depression story. But Joan, the point of view character, is apsychologist, and so her struggle after giving birth is perhaps a little moreself-examined than it might be otherwise, and since she's married to apsychiatrist, she gets it from him, too. Not to mention the well-meaning andhelpful older sister.
Finally, the editors seem to like a bit of humor, in amelancholy sort of way, judging by "Light & Luminous" by Tania James, abouta Chicago Indian dance instructor whose relevance to her students is fadingeven as a rival teacher is gaining fame. I like the fresh setting here.
Alas, I submit to Five Points and get nowhere. Goodmagazine, tied for 16th in the PerpetualFolly Pushcart Prize Ranking (Fiction).
[I liked the issue very much, but is it petty of me to pointout that the verb "to lay" is misused at least twice, including two times onone page? Writers should get this right; editors should catch it when they don't.I understand when this is done in dialogue, or in the voice of somecharacters, but in this case I don't see any justification for it. This is thekind of error that drives me a little nuts. I suspect most people don't care, but I wish everyone did.]