Glimmer Train Stories, Winter 2006 #57

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

First appearance in print of these works. Includes stories by Randy F. Nelson, Bruce McAllister, Yosefa Raz, Aaron Gwyn, M. Allen Cunningham, Susan Jackson Rodgers, Paul Mandelbaum, Catherine Ryan Hyde, Silas Zobal, Dalia Azim, Robert Vivian, Ariana-Sophia Kartsonis, and Shimon Tanaka. Interview with Mary Yukari Waters. Each story is preceded by a picture of the author as a child, brief autobiographical comments, and a printed signature. Several authors in each issue also contribute to the comments and photographs found in the "Last Pages" at the end of each issue. A rather idiosyncratic journal, edited by two sisters, but one which consistently publishes excellent fiction. 252 pp. Cover art by Jane Zwinger. We specialize in literary journals, and have many others - including many not yet catalogued and listed on line.

Genres: Anthologies

252 pages, Paperback

Published January 1, 2006

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.

Reviews

[寿理 宮本 · Rating 3 out of 5]

An ongoing project is when I recover some damaged book from a little library and attempt to improve upon it, such as The Complete Tales of Winnie-The-Pooh currently in my hands where I have taped back together the spine and am contemplating whether to give it a baking soda bath to remove the heavy perfume scent(?!) it's soaked in that is giving me a slight headache but I don't know if the next person will have the same sensitivity (though it's safer to assume yes).

The book I've spent the longest time improving is this one, which I'm not sure if it was even worth doing. I can't remember if it was a victim of the one little library that someone set on fire(!!), but it definitely had some smoke damage (a few do, probable donation from a smoking home), so I initially dumped it thoroughly in baking soda and left it in a sealed container for several months. When that didn't work, I changed out the powder and let it sit for even longer. When THAT didn't quite work, I finally let it air out in our shed until I'd basically forgotten it was there, then I found it again earlier and wiped it down, then set some heavy books over it to flatten it out a bit. Still didn't quite work as well as I would've liked, but better than it was.

But the stories are kind of... I don't know. It's like stuff my parents would talk about with their friends/acquaintances, those sort of stories (it feels like). Slice of life, all about death in some fashion. It reminds me of waiting for my folks when they were socialising, and I wanted to leave whatever function we were attending. I could only read a couple, and I'm sure there's an audience for them, but... unsatisfying amount of time invested to payoff. The Pooh book suffered much less damage and is much more likely to find a new home (however temporary).

Not as such regretful I did it; at least it wasn't me spending a solid hour ACTIVELY removing all the stickers from The Secret Life of Bees before reading the N word in it (sorry, I don't care which book it is, that's where I stop reading).

[Kristina Wojtaszek]

The Offering by Aaron Gwyn was so very good!