This month's challenge is about cultural differences. Show how beings of different cultural, religious, or species background react to the same events.

Remember: Challenges are supposed to be fun, but don't forget to stretch yourself. If you normally write fantasy, try SF. If you've never tried space opera, here's your chance. It doesn't have to be great. It's all about trying new things. There's no word limit, no time limit, no nothin'. Just have fun.

Challenges can be suggested by anyone and suggestions should be sent to Maria (newsletter (at) onlinewritingworkshop.com). This month's Challenge was sent in by Elizabeth Porco.

2011 Crit Marathon Results

Chris Cornell and Rhonda S. Garcia both crossed the finish line last night, so congratulations to them for their 21 and 23 crits, and to all those who did more than the minimum. Also, special thanks to all those who worked on the underreviewed list.

And now for the winners! A last minute tie for first place: Gio Clairval and Lawrence Pittenger! Big congratulations to them both for their 102 crits each (triple digits, holy cow!)

We also have a tie for second place, with Christine Lucas and Julie Swift, both with 31 crits, so a round of applause for both of them and their hard work.

As for the prize, Gio is a veteran of the workshop, and so is not eligible, but she sure did make Lawrence work for it. So Lawrence Pittenger is the winner of the prize of a one year OWW membership.

Congratulations to all the participants! We hope to see you again next year.

The Editors' Choices are chosen from the submissions from the previous month that show the most potential or otherwise earn the admiration of our Resident Editors. Submissions in four categories--science fiction chapters, fantasy chapters, horror, and short stories -- receive a detailed review, meant to be educational for others as well as the author. 

MINSTRELS OF FATE, Chapter 13, by Beth Cato

This mid-book chapter of Cato's urban fantasy is packed with excitement and full of strong character detail. The pace is maintained through quick action and the ingenuity of the characters when confronted with a trans-dimensionally invading dragon (one with a particularly nasty and creative destructive side effect) and Cato does a good job of producing interpersonal conflict while keeping all of her protagonists likeable.

One of the means by which she accomplishes this is by allowing each of the characters to care strongly about someone else. A character who loves something or someone else unconditionally has a head start on winning the audience's sympathies. When that character is also willing to fight for the thing she loves, that natural tendency towards sympathy is reinforced.

Cato also does an excellent job of keeping the story moving. One basic metric for whether a scene is doing sufficient work in the story is to consider is any narrative element changes within it. Is there character development? Does tension increase or decrease? Is anything--in a narrative sense--created, transformed, or destroyed?

In each of the scenes in this chapter, there are examples of exactly that sort of narrative progress. Alta witnesses the destruction the dragon has wrought and she begins formulating a plan by which to attack it; Alta and Jin are reunited; Jin has come to the understanding that he must indeed fight; the protagonists tackle the dragon.

Cato's understanding of this basic element of narrative fiction serves her in good stead here: too many journeyman writers (and quite a few professional ones) routinely allow a story to stagnate or to cycle over the same territory over and over again, rather than constantly expanding their scope and pushing forward. Cato does not make these errors.

There are, however, some elements for improvement in the chapter as it now stands. One of these is on the level of her control of her prose. While her narrative and structural sense is sound on a story scale, the actual sentences often fail to do enough work to keep the prose consistently interesting and evoke a vivid and continuous trance state in the mind of the reader.

There are some ways to address this. One is by maintaining a more consistent tone. Cato does not make the error of wavering between high-fantasy and contemporary diction. Very few authors have the chops to pull this off: Roger Zelazny was one. Most of us, alas, are not Roger Zelazny.

However, Cato does exhibit a tendency to occasionally lapse into a banal sort of stream-of-consciousness character reaction to catastrophe. When her narrative--rather than the point of view character--remarks "Oh no. It was going to bite Jin," this is a lapse into telling rather than showing, and it divorces readers from the action.

The result is that, at a moment when readers should be leaning forward, fingernails scratching at the edges of whatever reading device they prefer, they are instead removed and viewing through an intermediary. It would be much stronger to show this fight scene through strong, immediate images and sensory details. "Concrete, specific, and detailed" are the watchwords of the writer attempting to ground a reader firmly in a scene.

Cato's prose is very clean, and her action easy to follow, but there are some simple techniques she can use to make the fight scene more immediate and terrifying--to make readers feel the risk to her characters, and their bravery. Once is simply paying attention to her verbs. Keep the short, direct sentences, in other words, but use vivid and concrete verbs to evoke striking action. Especially in a fight scene, think in terms of fixing an image or a sensation with a few well-chosen words. Generally speaking (although not always) a specific verb will be a stronger choice than general one. "Slouched" is more evocative than "walked," for example.

Another thing to consider is specific sensory detail. There are some good moments of it here--Jin pushing the herbs his body wants to vomit back down his own throat, for example--but that could be made stronger by Alta noticing the bitter scent of bile and the plants as he does so. Alta's indrawn breath searing her lungs as the dragon breathes fire over her head is another excellent example--but I wondered, then, where was the taut, pulling sensation of seared skin, or the smell of her hair scorching? And why doesn't it hurt her to draw a breath afterwards?

So much immediacy is contained in sensory detail. And some of that comes from what the characters feel--literally, physically--when they feel. What sensations they have. Is fear a kind of nausea to this particular character? Or a kind of paralysis? Does it make him weak, or her angry? Emotions manifest as sensations, after all. And by describing those sensations, we place the reader firmly in the body of the character experiencing the emotions.

One other thing I'd like to see Cato become more aware of is when she contradicts herself. This undermines narrative confidence, and has the immediate effect of making readers start questioning their suspension of disbelief. An early example of this is the first few paragraphs of this chapter: Alta is running, and running easily. And then she is walking and panting. And then she's bent over panting, but the author tells us that she's not out of breath, just thinking. These reversals will tend to confuse and annoy many readers, and annoyed readers have a tendency to wander off and so something else.

Which doesn't help any of us get their entertainment dollars!

All in all, though, I'd say this is an engaging chapter, and with some work it could be a very strong one.

--Elizabeth Bear
Author of THE SEA THY MISTRESS

BELT, Chapter 1, Part 2 by Sean Michael O'Brien

A fine balance of the protagonist's personal struggles and the technical side of events charactertizes this chapter selection. We have Collier, an independent Belt miner trying to score an asteroid strike, whilst being dogged by a ruthless ex-girlfriend. The Don Quixote allusions are charming, Collier's handy (if a little predictable) trusty on-board computer is competently portrayed, and the prose easily describes the logistics of this future life, down to the quirky neologisms of his trade. In other words, the technobabble never intrudes, nor does it confuse. This is an effective skill for a science fiction writer.

Like I've said before, the Author's Comments section is a good opportunity for a writer to practice ‘pitching' their novel to an audience that, for all intents and purposes, can stand in for an agent or editor. When summarizing what your book is about, put on your marketing hat and try to encapsulate your book in a brisk, lively way. This is also a good test for the writer to see if s/he understands the book on such a level that they can encapsulate it. If you're having problems with that, it can be an indication that your plot needs paring. Whether it's a short blurb or a blurb that spans a couple paragraphs, the ability to ‘pitch' your book in this written way is essential. So while the Author's Comments here deliver the necessary information, give an actual ‘marketing blurb' a try.

The nitty-gritty:

The tug this time came from the opposite direction, as if Rocinante was an elevator going up to a penthouse at a very low rate of speed.

While you want your allusions/metaphors/similes to be as original as possible, bear in mind the context. This is an SF novel that seems to primarily take place in deep space. Does this allusion of an elevator in a penthouse enhance this future world? You don't want to pull the reader out by referencing something they might associate to modern times (or worse yet, ancient history) unless it makes contextual sense. This isn't very jarring, but it did make me pause. Though the narrative is written in third person, it's a tight third from Collier's point-of-view, and this voice can be used to a better advantage. Find allusions that would more readily occur to Collier - not only will it remain in context of the universe you're building, but it will add some color to his point-of-view.

Language like this,

The next five minutes were interesting for Collier knew well the operation of the probe

...is what I call ‘telegraphing.' It's throwaway language that pulls the reader out of the immediacy of the narrative, or introduces a sort of ‘as you know, Bob' detail that should be able to be said in a more subtle manner. These issues are all related to ‘telling,' rather than ‘showing' - that old rule. Sometimes a writer can get away with it, but in this case it's just intrusive. Don't tell the reader that the next five minutes will be interesting; let them decide that for themselves through the vibrancy of your prose. And if you need to talk about something technical in the action, ease it in there through Collier's observations (in this context, it's understandable he'll be paying attention and maybe even going through the steps in his mind, as he's invested in the job and worried that something might screw up). The writer's challenge is to make the transition or delivery of information as seamless as possible. The reader should be learning things and absorbing the world without that process being made explicit by the writer.

Along these same lines, some of the dialogue grew a little hyperbolic or cartoonish, specifically when Isa cornered him and their past relationship got discussed through accusation. It's fantastic that this well-trod idea of a Belt miner has some personal stakes to balance the SF stuff - character is important and adds a lot to any typical SF narrative - but just be mindful of cliché. How they say things, the adverbs you might use to describe the dialogue, can all play a part on if the conversation sounds over the top or too simplistic. If they had a complicated relationship and a bad breakup, work on showing that in darker, more subtle ways. This will create more depth. Collier's reactions to her - by turns immature and justified - are a great beginning. He's not perfect or too self-righteous. And he gives her a piece of his mind at the end of this chapter, so we see he is also not a pussy. The reader is now hoping she will get some comeuppance, and that will tie into the overall plot/action of the book. There is already a tie between her and the Big Bad mining corporation, so we have Collier and his Little Guy Fighting the Man narrative to create that parallel.

For the rest of this review, visit the Editor's Choice area of the OWW site!

--Karin Lowachee
Author of THE GASLIGHT DOGS, BURNDIVE and CAGEBIRD

"Superhero" by Arun Jiwa

Writing for a themed anthology like the Machine of Death project is a fun challenge. Your story needs to use a shared premise, but approach it from unique angles. The beauty of the MoD concept is its simplicity: a machine spits out a paper naming the way you will die. That's it. The mechanism may be mystifying, but what it actually does is very straightforward. "Superhero" adapts this premise to a lively scenario: the machine appears in a world where superheroes abound, and predicts that for millions of people, the cause of their deaths will be "SUPERHERO". Chaos ensues, heroes attempt to destroy one another, the collateral damage kills millions, and the predictions become a self-fulfilling prophecy. Along the way, questions are raised about the futility of attempting to change one's fate, with the narrator concluding that it's still worthwhile to assert free will.

There's a sharp energy running through this draft that suggests it's got the potential to make a good candidate for the anthology, once it gets a few things sorted out. The basic story in here is strong enough, but a confusing framework and twisty, grammatically-muddy sentences are leaching the power out of it. Someone will need to go through this and do a strict line edit, but meanwhile, let's look at a few ways that the storytelling isn't quite doing what it needs to do.

Here's the very first line of the story:

"My name is Shade, and the following passages are recollections of some of my involvements with the Mortality Machine, the vigilante hero group known as The League, and the inventor of the machine: Faust."

That's a long sentence to begin with. It introduces some key elements of the story -- Shade, the Machine, The League, and Faust -- but tosses them at us in a jumbled-up way that doesn't give us the tools to sort them out. And right off the bat, a phrase like "the following passages are recollections of some of my involvements" bogs us down in a lot of words that convey hardly any meaningful information. You could probably cut the whole first two paragraphs, work Shade's name in later on, and begin the story here:

"I assume you're reading this for the same three reasons everyone else has read it. You want to know why we destroyed the world. I hesitate to include you in the blame for the superhero atrocities of war, but I suppose I intended to address this to the remaining heroes in the world, whether or not you were involved like the rest of us. Of course, you want to know who invented the Mortality Machine, that innocuous device that caused this all in the first place. And maybe, you want to know the truth."

A list like this is basically telling the reader what to expect: here is the structure of the story, and here are vital things you will find in it.

However: in the middle of stating these items, before we've even gotten to the second reason for reading, a sentence ("I hesitate...") goes off on a tangent that interrupts the list. By the time that sentence winds to an end, I've lost track of what we're talking about, and the punchy impact of the list has been deflated. The only thing that sentence accomplishes is to let us know that Shade is addressing heroes, information that could come in at the end of the story when Shade speaks more directly to her readers about heroics. I'd cut it from this paragraph entirely.

Another thing gunking up the list is the word "innocuous" -- it means harmless, which the device clearly is not. The machine may have seemed neutral enough when created, but while we're being told it's responsible for death and destruction, to see it described as innocuous is only confusing. I'd use some other adjective (for example, "mysterious") that will heighten the reader's attention.

Here's that paragraph again, cleared up:

"I assume you're reading this for three reasons: You want to know why we destroyed the world. You want to know who invented the Mortality Machine, the mysterious device that caused all this destruction in the first place. And maybe you want to know the truth."

Beyond just tidying up the sentences, I wonder if the substance of this list needs to be reconsidered, too. I feel misled by the first item, because it makes me go through the whole story waiting for the destruction of the world; whereas so far as I can tell, the world never actually gets destroyed. We see one explosion that destroys a city, and some passing mentions of a hero-on-hero Shadow War, in which "millions of people whose death predictions simply said SUPERHERO ended up dying as a result of the ensuing duels." That's it? Massive bystander deaths may be a serious world-wide tragedy, but after a phrase like "we destroyed the world," it's still sort of anticlimactic.

The last item on the list is also confusing, because "the truth" is rather vague. If Shade is already telling the truth about why they destroyed the world, what other, additional truth is she referring to here? Saying people want to know "the truth" makes for a dramatic pronouncement, but if Shade is going to set up the entire shape of her story in this paragraph, she has to deliver on the implied promise. If there's some more specific truth that Shade thinks her readers want to know, please be clear on what she's promising to tell -- and then make sure she tells it!

Watch for sentences that get convoluted in ways that undercut their urgency. For example: Shade says, "My parents, who I will mention more about briefly, both died that day." Why interrupt a stark statement about her parents' death just to throw in an unimportant aside? Keep the sentence tight and meaningful: "My parents both died that day." If she's going to talk more about them, we'll find that out soon enough.

(Incidentally, I find it a little weird that even though both her superhero parents die in an act of mutual self-sacrifice, Shade talks about it mainly in terms of "the day the Torch dies" and so forth, as though her dad's death counts more than her mom's.)

For the rest of this review, visit the Editor's Choice area of the OWW site!

--Karen Meisner, Editor, Strange Horizons

"ID(I/E)OPHONE" by Kelly Lagor

How would a six-year-old boy react to a world full of demon-possessed people? That is the question addressed by "Id(i/e)ophone." Peter and his family head for a shelter, but before they can reach it, Peter's father becomes possessed. Peter, his mother and brother flee back home, but the father turns up there. Peter's brother, Tommy, attacks the father but is overcome. Peter, ultimately, becomes possessed and filled with anger and decides to kill his mother.

The story has strong suspense, quickly revealing that something is wrong in the world but not telling us exactly what until later. Additional suspense is created because the characters are in danger for most of the story. The story also has some nice description, such as "there were pools of dull brown or black, like someone had dropped something covered in paint and then dragged it away." The dramatic irony created here--because we understand what these pools are even though the six-year-old Peter does not--generates sympathy in us for Peter. Another strength is Peter himself--a unique, interesting, believable six-year-old, with a strong love of order, rules, and the clear ringing of a triangle.

The main areas I'd like to discuss in this critique are voice, point of view, and telling.

*Voice: The story is told in Peter's third-person limited-omniscient viewpoint. While many authors believe that deciding on a viewpoint is all one needs to do in regard to POV, that is really just the starting point. Within third person limited omniscience, there is a huge range of possibilities. One key issue is how close the point of view will be to the viewpoint character. Distance can be created through many means; the most important type of distance is psychic distance. Does every sentence reflect what the viewpoint character would notice and the way he would think about these things? How close are we to his thoughts? Are we getting his thoughts in the words that he would use? Or are his thoughts translated into more orderly or more poetic prose?

Since in reality thoughts are often fragmented and overlapping, in most stories the viewpoint character's thoughts are made somewhat more orderly, so we can follow them. Yet most readers want to feel close to the viewpoint character, so we want this psychic distance to remain minimal. Most writers are unaware that there is distance in the viewpoint; thus, creating unintentional distance is the most common weakness in point of view.

More important than the distance, though, are shifts in the distance. Every time the viewpoint or the distance in the viewpoint shifts, readers are jarred. So writers need to become aware of distance in the viewpoint and of changes to that distance. This brings us to Peter's POV.

Looking at the opening paragraph of the story, we can see several shifts in the distance, as the narrative voice at times sounds like that of a six-year-old boy and at times sounds like a much older narrator:

"Peter was six. Peter liked being six. He was getting tall enough where he could peer over the tops of the deli counter when he was out with his mother shopping and she let him reach up on his tippy toes for the take-a-number wheel. He loved the deli wheel - such an orderly way to do things. He had also completed an entire year of kindergarden and was in a proper numbered grade and everything. As far as he could tell, everything was progressing as it should. Which was good. Peter liked order almost as much as he liked being six."

The first two sentences, in their simplicity of structure and word choice and in their conciseness, sound like sentences that might come from a six-year-old. The rest of the paragraph, though, mixes "adult" words and "childish" words, and sophisticated structures with simpler structures. For me, "peer" doesn't sound like a word a child would use. "Peek" seems more likely. I also don't think a child would know the term "deli counter," or use the phrases "proper numbered grade" or "everything was progressing as it should." On the other hand, "tippy toes" and "the take-a-number wheel" are childish phrases, and the simplicity of the overall concepts discussed seem childish. Thus, the voice has elements of an adult's voice and elements of a child's voice, the viewpoint moving farther from Peter and then closer to Peter, often within a single sentence. This is distracting and makes it hard for the reader to feel settled in the story.

I'm not saying that the entire story must be written in words and sentences that a six-year-old would use, but I am saying that the voice throughout the story should remain consistent, and any shifts should be limited, controlled, and gradual, so the reader is not distracted or jarred. 

Here are a couple more examples where the voice seemed inconsistent:

"He liked the triangle because it only made a noise when you hit it and as far as he was concerned, inanimate things should only make noises when you hit them." The sentence starts out sounding like a child and then becomes quite adult-sounding with "as far as he was concerned, inanimate things . . ."

"It was the same feeling he would get when he thought there were monsters under his bed. The shadows shifted on the floor and he clenched shut his eyes. Then, the familiar tingle of proximity on his skin as a presence grew before him." The first two sentences have a child's voice; the third has the vocabulary and structure of an older narrator.

For the rest of this review, visit the Editor's Choice area of the OWW site!

--Jeanne Cavelos, editor, author, director of Odyssey

This month, best-selling author Suzanne McLeod shares her personal experience about how she started with OWW and what she learned through the process.

Suzanne McLeod writes the Spellcrackers urban fantasy series about magic, mayhem and murder -- liberally spiced with hot guys, kick-ass chicks, and super-cool supes. There are currently six books contracted in the series; her latest releases are The Cold Kiss of Death, #2 (US /Ace) and The Bitter Seed of Magic, #3 (UK /Gollancz). The Spellcrackers books are also available in Australia, Germany, Russia and Estonia. Find out more at: www.spellcrackers.com

Take it away, Suzanne!

My OWW Experience

When I started writing I joined a local Writing for Beginners class, which was great at giving me all the basics, and ultimately resulted in some of us making up our own small writing group. The group was (and is) fantastic, but unfortunately none of the others write (or at that time, even read) SFFH, and I felt I needed feedback from those who knew the genre. Which is why, when I discovered the OWW, I decided to give it a try.

So I (rather nervously) signed up for the free month's trial, and posted my first piece of writing. While I waited for someone to read and critique it, I read the other members' submissions, and the reviews they'd received, to get some pointers on how it all worked, and see whether there were any I felt I could critique. Which is probably the route most workshop newbies take when they join.

Soon I was posting and reviewing along with everyone else. It was always exciting finding someone had given me a critique, and as anyone would hope, the critiques I received greatly helped to improve all aspects of my writing. They also gave me good feedback about any genre tropes and clichés I'd managed to include in my stories--vampires excepted, of course!

But it wasn't only the critiques I found helpful.  I learned a huge amount from critiquing others. It's always easier to spot what isn't working for you in someone else's writing (that whole objectivity thing), and as I'm a great believer in offering reasons why, along with suggestions/ideas for improvements to go along with any comments, this encouraged me to be much more analytical. Of course, a critique isn't overly helpful if it only concentrates on what isn't working, so pointing out what works well, and why it works well for you, is equally as important.

I also learned tremendously from reading other critiques. By comparing their thoughts to mine on a particular submission, and seeing where we agreed, or didn't agree. And by reading critiques on submissions where I felt I didn't have a lot constructive to offer, either because I hadn't enjoyed the story as much as others had, or because I wasn't as knowledgeable about the sub-genre, or because I felt the writer's experience level was so much higher than mine. All helped to broaden my critique and writing horizons.

The other fantastic benefit I got from the workshop was e-meeting other like-minded writers. I always found everyone extremely enthusiastic about writing, and the SFFH genre in particular (sadly not always the case in the non-genre, non-writing world), and happily made some wonderful writing friends. From them, from the OWW resources, and from the workshop e-mail groups, I also learned a valuable amount about how the publishing industry works.

So the workshop worked out brilliantly for me, and I've always been thankful I joined. It can be time-consuming, and hard work critiquing submissions, but you get as much, if not more, out of the experience as you put in, so it's extremely worthwhile. And for any genre writers who are looking for feedback to improve their writing, I never hesitate to recommend they give the OWW a go.

--Suzanne McLeod

Steve Chapman sold short story "Nemesis" to Marion Zimmer Bradley's Sword & Sorceress 26 (November 2011).

Eliza Collins's story "The Unseen Truths" is slated to appear in the next Andromeda Spaceways Inflight Magazine.

Ben Crowell told us: "I sold my story 'The Pass' which was workshopped on OWW, to Asimov's. Henry Szabranski's crit was especially helpful."

Sarah Elizabeth's novel Out in Blue, a paranormal romance published by Entangled Publishing, will be released on September 6th.

April Grey announced: "My novel, Chasing the Trickster, workshopped at OWW will be coming out this Nov. from Eternal Press."

Tom Jolly sold two short stories lately: "The Last Necromancer" to Daily Science Fiction and "Pulse" to Something Wicked.

Whoops! We missed the fact that Jennifer Michaels published a story called "Ruining Lunchtime" in Spaceports & Spidersilk back in June.

Tony Peak had two sales this month: "Just wanted to let you all know that my story ‘A Return to Paradise' will soon be appearing in The Fifth D. Also, ‘Tricks of the Scarecrow Trade' will appear in the September issue of Allegory. Thanks to everyone who read and reviewed it here on OWW!"

L. K. Pinaire has a story titled "The Last Resort" coming out in issue 52 of Andromeda Spaceways Inflight Magazine this fall.

Dinesh Pulandram's fantasy story "Evangeline Vicare" will appear at ResAliens.com this fall.

August 2011 Honor Roll Nominees

Reviewer: Ada Hoffmann
Submission: Of Blessed Servitude by A. Merc Rustad
Submitted by: A. Merc Rustad

Reviewer: Lydia Kurnia
Submission: Illusion Ch 6 by Dy Loveday
Submitted by: Dy Loveday

Reviewer: Kim Purdue
Submission: Illusion: Ch 7 by Dy Loveday
Submitted by: Dy Loveday

Reviewer: Lydia Kurnia
Submission: The Gremio Promise Chapter 14 by Ann Winter
Submitted by: Ann Winter

Reviewer: Kitty K.
Submission: Pearl - Chapter 2 by Rob Campbell
Submitted by: Rob Campbell

Reviewer: Laurence Pittenger
Submission: Of Blessed Servitude by A. Merc Rustad
Submitted by: A. Merc Rustad

Reviewer: Laurence Pittenger
Submission: Death of Life, Life of Death (REVISED) by Rebecca Birch
Submitted by: Rebecca Birch

Reviewer: Jason Gleason
Submission: The Watcher -- a scene by Kim Allison
Submitted by: Kim Allison

Reviewer: Gio Clairval
Submission: Godfire Chapter 37 - plot summary included by Elissa Hunt
Submitted by: Elissa Hunt

Reviewer: Laurence Pittenger
Submission: Urban Fox by Ann Winter
Submitted by: Ann Winter

Reviewer: Gene Spears
Submission: Hand of Gaia - Part 25 (TRT) by Rhonda S. Garcia
Submitted by: Rhonda S. Garcia

Reviewer: Christine Lucas
Submission: Hand of Gaia - Part 25 (TRT) by Rhonda S. Garcia
Submitted by: Rhonda S. Garcia

Reviewer: Stelios Touchtidis
Submission: Hand of Gaia - Part 26 (TRT) by Rhonda S. Garcia
Submitted by: Rhonda S. Garcia

Reviewer: Laurence Pittenger
Submission: Everything's Gone Green (working title) by David Rees-Thomas
Submitted by: David Rees-Thomas

Reviewer: Robyn Hamilton
Submission: Message In A Bottle part 1 by Arthur Blake
Submitted by: Arthur Blake

Reviewer: Steve Brady
Submission: PEARL - Chapter 1 by Rob Campbell
Submitted by: Rob Campbell

Reviewer: Laurence Pittenger
Submission: The Boy from the Chicken Feet House 1 + 2 revised, C4C by Bo Balder
Submitted by: Bo Balder

Reviewer: Rob Campbell
Submission: The Venerated Ones Chapter 1 Part A by Billy Catringer
Submitted by: Billy Catringer

Reviewer: Beth Cato
Submission: Stealing A Dream Part VI: Chapterss 48 to 49 by Lydia Kurnia
Submitted by: Lydia Kurnia

Reviewer: Scott Kennedy
Submission: Owners' Manual for the Svartenson Darkstill, 3rd ed. by F. Wilde
Submitted by: F. Wilde

Reviewer: Rhonda S. Garcia
Submission: Pick any Phone (Forever Queen Ch. 40) by Stelios Touchtidis
Submitted by: Stelios Touchtidis

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