by Charlotte Gullick

SFWP’s 2001 Awards Program grand prize winner, Charlotte Gullick, was published by Penguin in August of 2002. The following is an excerpt from By Way of Water
Read more about Charlotte.

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by Tom Waltz

At 8:43 p.m., on December 31st, 1999, Candice “Candy” Martin started drinking. She uncorked one of the two bottles of her favorite White Zinfandel’which she’d lined up on the kitchen table’and topped off the first McDonald’s Super Size plastic cup she could get her hands on; not very fancy, sure, but she was alone, so screw formality. She cocked her head back and filled her mouth with the pinkish liquid, savoring its warm descent through her throat, into her chest and stomach. She knew it was a bad idea, drinking; she wasn’t a big drinker and was never very good at it when she did. But it had been a long night already, with a bad ending still waiting on the other side, so why not enjoy herself for the moment? Especially after what she’d just done.
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By Jeri Smith-Ready

I always swore I’d throw a party when I got my first rejection letter from a publisher. Imagine how lucky I felt when it arrived on my birthday. One party, two stoned birds. (read on…)

Historian David R. Turner reviews On the Hills of God, set in 1947 and following the story of a young man caught in the middle of a changing world.

Palestinian author Ibrahim Fawal is the recipient of the PEN-Oakland Award for Excellence in Literature.

Go on to the review. (read on…)

by Ray Murray

Bursting through the Detroit Night, on I-96 at precisely 55 per, cars ripping past in the left lane, doing seventy plus, tracking the eased curves past the neon — enormous electric elegy to the big three, curving north, then east, then southeast, fifty-five, cars ripping past on the left, not wanting any trouble, toward the bridge, we drive.

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