REVIEW: “Last Letter First” by Kristina Ten

Review of Kristina Ten, “Last Letter First,” Luna Station Quarterly 54 (2023): Read online. Reviewed by Sara L. Uckelman.

Content note: Pregnancy, abortion.

What started off as a fun little story about the intimacy of acquaintance — the way in which two strangers thrown together through coincidence can suddenly become friends, only to just as suddenly separate, to go their own way and never see each other again — segued neatly into unexpected depths. In a sense, the reader and the story are themselves like Duri and Margosha, thrown together by accident, revealing something of each other, and then passing on.

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REVIEW: “All the Arms We Need” by Kristina Ten

Review of Kristina Ten, “All the Arms We Need,” Flash Fiction Online 93 (2021): Purchase here. Reviewed by Sara L. Uckelman.

The premise of this story is simple: Sometimes, all we need is to be held, and sometimes two arms is not enough. What is better than two arms? Eight, of course, and better than that a thousand. What we learn in this exceedingly sweet story is that if an octopus is a better hugger than a human, a millipede is even better than an octopus.

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