Glimmer Train Stories, #64

by Susan Burmeister-Brown (Editor), Linda B. Swanson-Davies (Editor), Cheri Johnson (Contributor)

Glimmer Train presents literary short stories by award-winning and upcoming writers. Here are some Cheri Johnson
Guralnick
Whenever one of those little wolves came in on the same pitch as another, the first wolf lifted or dropped its voice to make it sound as if the pack were growing all the time. Susan Perabo
Why They Run the Way They Do
Sweetie, Tommy says miserably. And right then it becomes apparent that one of us is going to start crying. I m not sure which of us, but either way it s something to be thwarted at all costs. James Sepsey
Not When a Day Can Be This Good
You re thirty-seven. I need you to be a man. Like your father, your grandfather, your great-grandfather. All men. God, you d think it d run in the family at some point. D.B.C. Pierre
Interview by Jennifer Levasseur and Kevin Rabalais
I never quite believe writers who say they re up at seven a.m. to write a thousand words. They have a cup of tea, and then write two thousand words after lunch. I can t see that happening to me. Antonya Nelson
Falsetto
He had never been an ordinary boy. He was so thin that people grew angry when he wouldn t eat. Deborah Tarnoff
Crazy Ukraine Girl
All over the world people are preoccupied with building memorials to help them remember. But the smart ones are busy forgetting. Susan Petrone
This Is How It Happened
I don t think any of them are in actual they understand that I am dying, they re just getting used to the idea in incremental fashion. Elissa Minor Rust
In My Mother s Trailer
My girlfriend s son, Charlie, is watching a boy about his age resuscitate a frog on tonight s news. To be fair, the boy is only pretending to resuscitate the frog, a re-enactment of the actual event, which happened earlier in the week. Christiana Langenberg
Half of What I Know
The theory is the dog committed suicide. My father tells me this when I get home from school, after he says Luigi is gone, and I ask him what he means. Mary Gaitskill
Interview by Sarah Anne Johnson
I was also going through physical changes, what they euphemistically call the change of life. It was like the ground was shifting under my feet, so it was hard for me to write from a solid place. Janice Soderling
Rented Rooms
There is a succession of rooms, all of them temporary, as life is temporary. Some of them, many of them, are filled with laughter, with friendship, with affection, with hope. Andrew Roe
Please Don t Tell Me That We go on one of those streets that seems to repeat itself every few gas stations, Home Depots, Taco Bells, Burger Kings. After that some apartments or a storage place or a used-car lot, and then the same scene all over again. Benjamin Percy
The Caves in Oregon
The cave a lava tube runs beneath their house, their neighborhood, and beyond, a vast tunnel that once carried in it molten rock the color of an angry sun.

232 pages, Paperback

First published August 1, 2007

About the author

You will not find much biographical information around the web about Susan Burmeister-Brown. She co-founded Glimmer Train with her sister Linda B. Swanson-Davis, and Susan and Linda are the current editors of Glimmer Train, one of the top literary journals in the country. If you walk on to a college campus or find someone who follows contemporary literature, they might not know Susan, but they will certainly know her achievements and influence in the literary world. Glimmer Train has been publishing for 18 years, and the publication is consistently outstanding. Susan is a lover of fiction and stories.