Introduction

This feature, “The Second Story,” includes four stories by writers who have previously published their fiction in one, and only one, other literary journal. Introducing each story is the editor who first “discovered” this writer’s work in the stacks, or the “slush pile,” as it is so affectionately called. In addition to celebrating the accomplishments of new writers, this feature highlights the heroic work being done by editors from the top to the bottom of the editorial food chain.

Each editor cites a different set of reasons for having chosen that story from among the hundreds of others under consideration, but the unifying principle is the effect each story produced in the reader. More experienced writers may find themselves preoccupied with issues of craft, and can lose sight of the primary mission of the storyteller: to have an effect upon the reader. This is one of the prerogatives of being a beginning writer, that they have the advantage of “beginner mind”—what the Japanese call Shoshin—and are not limited by the professional’s perceptions of what is possible.

By highlighting the work of these emerging writers, we hope to draw attention to the way that new writers can bring energy and insight to the task of storytelling, and reveal new ways of thinking about the craft of writing.