The following comments are made by Associate Editors here at Haven Spec. Associate Editor is the name we give to our first-tier readers, and, in many cases, they serve as champions for those stories recommended to the Assistant Editors, and finally, to the Editor-in-Chief. Below, we gave those Associate Editors some space in our pages to speak a little about those stories, which were recommended out of hundreds of others received by Haven Spec over the past few months.

We here at Haven Spec firmly believe in the awesome joy of discovering new voices—and not just those that come in through the submissions portal. Our Associate Editors are all relatively recently introduced to their positions, and each bring their own experiences and tastes to the fore when they choose from the gamut of submissions received. We thought our readers might like to hear from those voices, and to get a glimpse at how they felt when moved by a particular piece enough to recommend it be published at Haven Spec.

—TJ Price, Fiction Editor

Proliferation

J.A. Bryson

When I first read “Proliferation” by J.A. Bryson, I was invested before the first page was through. Bryson’s ability to pull a reader right into the anxiety of pre-teen parenthood sets the tone for the rest of the story, craftfully weaving Elizabeth’s own struggles with the reflections she sees in her son. Each scene highlights the juxtaposition between the thoughts and expectations of others versus Elizabeth’s own gut, creating a narrative that makes “Proliferation” my favorite kind of story: the kind where a mother’s love outshines society’s tendency to mold children into something more palatable.

—Review by K.A. Roy

Like Water

E.M. Linden

E. M. Linden’s Like Water begins with a woman extracting her milk-tongue, a beautiful word for the language she was born with. The sensory details are lovely—the parcel of her milk-tongue smells like the gutted fish she trades for the extraction of it. The story has an air of musicality and conjures up the island on which it takes place. When the narrator loses precious details of her life—a word, the name of her sister—it feels like the inevitable grief of such an exchange. People have to do this every day, making bargains for living at the expense of themselves, and yet the ending of this story is so quietly powerful.

—Review by Faith Allington

© The Editors of Haven Spec Magazine