This was a delightful story that managed to fit a ton of detail, description, and humor into only a few short words. I like the fact that the story started with Grandma hearing the joke and then devolved from there. It was a really effective choice in such a short piece to start things right off the bat.

My only (small) quibbles with the piece are that the reader never really gets a sense of what the joke was that Grandma laugh so much, and at the very end the story finishing with Grandpa's point of view felt like a bit of a deviation from what was otherwise Grandma's narrative for the rest of the story.

Overall, I thought this was a really fun, entertaining flash fiction story that has all of your usual humor and excellent technique. Nicely done!

I thought you did a great job of describing some of your experiences of living with autism. There's a lot of good information in here, including that it's not just a different perspective or something like that; it's truly a situation where people with autism have a neurodivergent experience of the world. My wife is a special education teacher and one of the vendors I interact with most for work is professionals on the spectrum, so I definitely relate to the information you're presenting in this piece.

One small suggestion I would make is to change the second person point of view ("I do not think the same way as you", "When you walk along the street," etc.). In my experience, written pieces about neurodiverse perspectives are often read as much by people in the community as outside of it; there's a good chance that someone seeking out work like this might be somewhere on the spectrum themselves and the second person POV might be a little off-putting if it makes assumptions about their experience of the world. It might be more inclusive to take an approach where you're detailing the experiences of an "average" person, or the majority of the population, while allowing a bit of room for the reader to connect with you if they have a similar experience of the world.

Overall, I thought this was an excellent essay and you made your point beautifully. Well done!

This was a really powerful, engaging story. You did a particularly great job of covering your bases in terms of explaining why John couldn't return home. At every step of the story, I'd start to think, "Well why couldn't he just..." and then the story would have a reason why that solution wouldn't work. Great job staying one step ahead of the reader (or one step ahead of this reader, at least!).

I honestly have no suggestions for improvement. I really enjoyed this story. I was going to suggest that John taking a moment to admire the Earth and think of his family back home at the opening of the story felt a little out of place considering that he was in the middle of a crisis, but like the other narrative points, you set it up well to resolve that disparity by the end of the story.

This was an excellent story and I really enjoyed the read. Nice work!

I liked your take on divinity. I'm of the same opinion that God isn't necessarily embodied by the Western Christian ideal of a grandfatherly white man in white robes, but rather can take any number of forms depending on to whom he's revealing himself. I also like the idea of trying to show that God is embodied in simple, everyday interactions.

Some added detail and development of the scene would really help to show what a special moment this is. While the scene is set effectively as it currently exists, it reads a little more like a quick vignette than a deeper story, and I think your initial premise (of God being in the people we love) would be more effectively illustrated with a bit more information about the nature of the relationship between the two individuals in the anecdote.

This was a thought-provoking item that was well-written. Nice work!

Wow, the 2004 election... that really takes me back! The first major election I was eligible to vote in was the now-infamous Bush/Gore election in 2000, and I remember having a lot of anxiety going into this 2004 election thanks to all the craziness that happened in 2000.

I really like the background you provided in this piece; your political inclinations and backstory were really clear and helped the reader get a sense of what you intend to bring into the future conversation about the current year's election. I like the fact that you have a blend of both interest and practical experience; that really helps establish you as an informed voice on the subject matter you'll be discussing.

I don't have any particular suggestions for improvement with respect to this piece in particular; it was written at a certain point in time and - at that time - it was everything it needed to be. However, given what's transpired in American politics since the 2004 election (which includes quite a lot of firsts!), I would be very interested to read an updated piece that includes, as part of the background, your thoughts and experience since 2004, particularly with the historic nature of both Obama's and Trump's respective elections, and how much the political landscape has changed in the past 20 years. I'd love to know more about how you've grown, changed, and come to think of politics in the intervening years. Again, that's not a criticism of this piece in particular, but more a commentary on how I'd love to see this piece develop if you're ever so inclined to expand upon it.

Overall, I think you did a great job with this piece. I loved reading it and getting to know a little bit more about your political views and the way you think about civics in our country. Well done!

After so many "Anniversary Reviews"  from you, I'm so pleased to be able to return the favor with an "I Write "  review this week!

I thought this was an excellent piece. The Villanelle form is beautiful when done effectively and you did a great job with it. It's not easy to have those repeating, reordered stanzas descending throughout the forum and I thought you handled it well. It was a beautiful version of this elegant form of poetry.

The only note I have, which isn't so much a criticism of the piece itself, is that this is listed as a contest entry (and stored in the "Poetic Musings" folder of your portfolio, and it would have been great to know if there was a specific prompt you were responding to, or if it was completely open in terms of subject matter and you just had to do something that matched the required form. I'm a big fan of context to help understand why you chose a particular form/approach (if there was an outside impetus for it).

Overall, this was an excellent poem that I really enjoyed reading. Nicely done, my friend!

This story was imaginative and a great idea based on the lyrics of the Johnny Cash song. I really liked all the worldbuilding that you did in a comparative short piece of just a few hundred words.

I would have loved more information on how the world got to this place of rationing sugar, and some more context on the Mayor's plan. As written, it's a little confusing how this world became what it was, why the Mayor had access to so much sugar, and suddenly decided to fight against the rations that everybody hated. It'd be great to know a little more about the backstory and decisions that drive the story.

While I think there's some room for improvement in general, I liked the premise and think there's quite a bit of potential in this story based on the lyrics of a popular song.

This is a really interesting blog prompt, and I'll admit I've often wondered what it would be like to be a member of the opposite sex. I think you did a great job of pointing out that the "harder or easier" qualifier on the question is mostly a matter of perspective and has less to do with a person's biological sex than their circumstances. Taking the example of parenting and child-rearing you mentioned, even among a population of only women, I suspect that answer would vary wildly depending on whether you were talking about a working single mother of three trying to keep her family above the poverty line, or an extremely wealthy housewife with one child and a full-time nanny or au pair to share responsibilities.

For me, the one criticism I have of this piece is that taking the approach of only answering this question through the lens of traditional gender roles as they relate to child-rearing somewhat limits the potential of the piece and makes it feel fairly dated, as the modern world has greatly expanded its societal expectations of parents. With more women in the workforce, more stay-at-home dads and dual-income households than ever before, co-parenting being a much higher priority for the younger generations, it feels like a bit of a missed opportunity to just explore this question through that particular lens.

I was actually much more interested in the point you made about perceptions of female beauty and scrutiny over appearance, which I think is a much more topical and interesting response to the prompt that's worth exploring further. As it is, it's sort of mentioned at the very end as an add-on and it could have been a really insightful and modern take on the prompt.

Wow, what a great story! This is one of the first times I've heard a true story about Jesus taking the wheel! I thought this was a great take on the prompt, and a really insightful perspective on the event. You did a really good job of explaining the thoughts and emotions going through your head both before and after the incident on the road, and how it really did feel like there was a supernatural element to it, based on the recognition that you could not have done it alone.

I was a little confused by the part where you mentioned that you thought the older couple which caused the crisis "knew exactly what they were doing" and that "they had planned it". Do you mean to imply that they were attempting to surprise you and get you to crash into them? I think that part of the story needs just a bit more context so the reader can understand what you mean and why you believe that.

This was a really great take on the prompt and an enjoyable story. Nice work!