Like you, I'm so busy that I often feel that I can't slow down or I'll get flattened by the eighteen-wheeler of Schedule looming in my rear-view mirror. I don't have time to read, so I skim things. But then something catches me, like the work of our featured poet, Jerry Payne, who examines existentialist angst with a self-deprecating shrug. Or "Some Detectives," by Michael Larraine, which made me cry and reminds me that reading poetry quietly, with full appreciation, is like meditation, or prayer.

We've balanced a short story about the misgivings of an expert deer hunter ("The Last Season" by Richard Trevae) with the civic antics of a bunch of discarded dolls who live in the mind of their creator ("Golly Wobbles," by Betty Jane Weigand.) Renowned author Marci Stillerman shares painfully evocative "The French Bathing Suit," and Janice Colman the edgy "Challah with Muscles." This is just a sampling of the delicacies we have in store for you in this issue. Slow down and savor. Take a break, and let that eighteen-wheeler speed the hell on by.