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

Pieces of Anna

R.L. Meza

Pieces of Anna warns you upfront that it’s going to be a gut punch of a story, starting from the opening “It’s a funny thing, telling folks that my astronaut daughter was lost at sea–”. Deftly blending tenderness, lyricism and soul-crushing grief (don’t forget the mechs!), it’s easy to see pieces of ourselves reflected in the protagonist’s search. I see it as an intimately human piece about loss and love. By the time I got to the neon rainbows, I felt as battered and achingly hopeful as the protagonist.

—Review by Faith Allington

In This Dimension, Do You Still Believe in God?

Lora Gray

The title of this story asks a question that could be answered in many ways, with an urgency that propelled me forward. Caleb, a husband to Abdi, is a scientist who enters an interdimensional bridge with the risk that he may not return. Each moment that Caleb experiences is interdimensional in nature, while losing none of its utter relatability. There’s a delightful hint of J. Alfred Prufrock to the story, a wandering through the abyss by means of everyday moments of grief. By the end of this story, human voices will indeed wake us.

—Review by Faith Allington

I loved reading IN THIS DIMENSION, DO YOU STILL BELIEVE IN GOD? for illustrating the delicate workings of love and memories. Remembering a partner’s hair, the contents of their closet, and the intensity inside their eyes are love languages. As a couple struggles with ever-expanding distance between them in space and time, I am haunted by their desire to stay together across dimensions. Each person holds onto something special about the other. In real life, it takes much less for a relationship to dwindle and break.

Grief is sized. As a math nerd, I appreciate this. Starting at 0.56 degrees, angles move towards home in 0.00 degrees. What do these numbers mean? The story weaves definitions in the forms of unmet expectations and loneliness. Why does the narrator’s husband (Abdi) have an olive-colored blanket, stare into unfamiliar photos, and not eat for several days? Are all Abdi’s across dimensions created the same?

The story is as expansive as it is deep. It poses a long list of open-ended questions about love, existence, and sacrifice while traversing the history of one relationship. The title isn’t as it seems either. Religion isn’t a focal point. To understand the true question, readers also have to fall in love with Abdi.

—Review by Pauline Chow

From the jump, Gray does an amazing job of grounding us in the characters and hinting at how the story might unfold. The imagery is so visceral and compelling, and most importantly, believable. In this piece, the characters and their relationship have so much depth, the ache of regret seeps under your skin. It leaves you wondering, if you could travel across dimensions, would you be willing to risk leaving what you love behind for good?

—Review by K.A. Roy

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