It’s not easy to write a full story in one sentence, so Mark and I were surprised to find three such submissions in our in-box this quarter. More surprising yet was that each was excellent, entirely worthy of publication.

We are serving up two of them—On Being Alone, by Bryan Wang, and Violence, by Roberta Allen—live for you in this Fall issue of VR, and showing only the title of the third, Only Venting, to tease you until you can get your eager hands on our next print issue, which will come out in January with the whole wicked sentence.

Of course, our print issue will be filled with other treats that, on this site, are only teasers. For now, you’ll just have to trust us: Quitting Smoking and Extra White and Chromey are worth the wait.

In the meantime, enjoy the long, tasty spaghetti-strings of Brian Wang’s On Being Alone and Roberta Allen’s Violence, the sinister charm of Billy Middleton’s Kye-Oats, and the odd and rather disquieting Unraveled, by Charles Lennox.

Hmmm…as the October skies grow darker, so, it seems, have our stories…

(Insert one winky emoticon writ in gothic black on the face of a green-splotched pumpkin.)