Mary Helen Specht

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The Best Short Story I Read in a Lit Mag This Week: “The Radical” by Brock Clarke

ByRoss McMeekin

  A few weeks ago I wrote about the risky ending of Mary Helen Specht’s “Night Island,” and how her switching perspectives at the end turned a potentially good story into a great one. In “The Radical” (The Cincinnati Review 11.2), author Brock Clarke also take his story to another level with a provocative ending…

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The Best Short Story I Read in a Lit Mag This Week: “Night Island” by Mary Helen Specht

ByRoss McMeekin

I’m a believer that some story shapes lend themselves more readily to pieces of different lengths. The shape of Mary Helen Specht’s story, “Night Island” (Prairie Schooner, Winter 2014), is risky and surprising, and might not work as well in a longer story or novel. But it’s what allows her six-hundred-word flash fiction piece to…