Recommended by Ken Love

I've said it once, and I'll say it again: the mark of good writing is to leave the reader or audience member wanting more at the end. Rich Helms "Accidents Arranged" is as juicy and deliriously wicked as a second helping of desert that should be avoided. I even read it twice! Oh, yes! This short piece had me!!

Each of us, at some point in time, will have to face that black day. And I truly admire writers who, while they yet live, make the attempt to deal in their own way with the finality of being mortal. Rich Helms w/ Dorothea Helms have rendered unto us a gift with "On The Edge". The piece is life-affirming without being mawkish or twee. Which is no easy feat.

Thank you, Cam Eickmeyer, for writing "Exit Poll" and giving many of us a reason to stand back and laugh at the utter absurdity of it all. When it's effective, satire is like a blade to the heart of illusion. Nicely done!

Screw-ball comedy or farce, Brent Alles' "Wake Up with WKUP" will keep you riveted and keep you going from beginning to end. Mr. Alles' sense of biting humor is on target. And engaging. Now when can we see it staged?

Okay! YEAH!! I get the joke. And I appreciate humor that dares to be grisly, yet works! Very nice, Morey. Now give me another!

Aleks Merilo's "The Nearest Far Away Place" is actually not a theater piece - it's the sound of heartbreak faintly reverberating in the darkness. Yes, it's a work for our time. A reminder of how a politcal agenda affects the most vulnerable of us so profoundly.

A short, precise piece that ends with a well-timed Hitchcockian jolt. It left me wanting more. Which is what good writing is all about.

I was raised in a Pentecostal Christian household. And as an adult, I recall having discussions very much like this with my parents (though a bit more pointed). "A Blessing" by Jennifer O'Grady is as short or as long as it needs to be. And everything you need to know is tucked within these short minutes. But the clincher is in how the work ends - one of the best resolutions to a story I've yet read. Nicely done, Jennifer!

Thirty writers have stepped up to recommend this work. And though there's no reason to believe that my little recommendation will mean much, here it is: "How About Them Dodgers" is not prescient. Nor is it terrifying in the dystopian sense. This short work is in and of the moment. Which makes it downright tragic. America has produced some of the greatest writers and artists known to the world. And they're now forced to deal with censorship. Difficult play to read, yet necessary.

I think it was the film critic/film historian David Thompson who said that a good satirist was like a demolition expert. Kelly McBurnette-Andronicos has lobbed a hand grenade at a wrong-headed institution with "Most Outstanding Minority Girl". The three characters are solid, the dialogue stings. This hand grenade, however, won't destroy its intended mark. Yet damage will be done. And felt!