Here’s how it works: each year since, well, last year, Reader editors have asked a Chicago writer we admire to judge the submissions to our annual fiction contest. There’s no reason at all to think that the ability to pen a good novel automatically makes someone an expert at appraising other people’s art, but it’s worked pretty well so far. In 2010, Adam Levin, author of The Instructions (and now Hot Pink, a story collection due out in March), picked an extraordinary bunch. This time around Goldie Goldbloom very kindly agreed to do the job. Already fascinating in all kinds of ways—as, for instance, the only lesbian I’ve ever met who’s also a practicing Hasid—Goldbloom distinguished herself by writing The Paperbark Shoe, the beautiful, horrible, unlikely yet entirely believable tale of a cultured, albino pianist who finds herself in the outest, backest region of the Australian outback during World War II.
Best of Chicago voting is live now. Vote for your favorites »
“Sky Boys” by Steve Trumpeter
“‘Can I hold your hand?’ he asked. ‘No,’ I said. ‘It’s a safety thing. If I slipped, I might take you with me.’”
“Thank God for Facebook!” by Timothy Moore
“He was like totally in love me with me, LOL. But his breath stank so I didn’t go for it, and he freaking killed me with a pipe.”
“Moving on at the Hipster Gym” by Tovah Burstein
“I shrug and turn my lip down, like a woman I saw on the retro stationary bike, her jellies spinning the wheels slowly on her way to nowhere special.”
“The Gentle Grift” by Tim Chapman
“That morning Jack had looked at his own hand under the fluorescent lighting in the office and seen his skeleton. He was becoming transparent. Soon, he thought, he’d be a shadow.”
“Teen Jeopardy” by Jessie Morrison
“Most 16-year-old Americans couldn’t find, say, Slovakia on a map. Robbie could not only find it, he could tell you its capital, major exports, GNP, and national bird. He could also sing the first four bars of its national anthem.”
Picks by Culture Editor Tony Adler:
“Red Velvet” by Chris L. Terry
Managing Editor Jerome Ludwig:
“The Fall and Rise of ‘The Worst Commercial Ever Made’” by Brian Costello
