This sketch is a hoot (to mix my animal kingdom metaphors) - I love the interplay that goes against type (the bright, if concerned, cow and the thick, if worried, farmer), and the bemused and amused doctor. The lines are short and snappy, giving it a feel of movement that any scene needs, but especially so in a comedy sketch-type of piece. It ties together nicely with the cow-sitting/patient sitting lines. This piece sits very nicely by itself, and would fit with a longer farcical one-act play.

I think this is a fine monologue, with some very realistic train of thought and motion (something difficult to do well). The thoughts given make sense in context, and seem very conversational. I get the sense of a real story being told. I also think that the only problems I have with it are more to do with the goal than the overall score. For the kinds of classroom monologue that I've done in acting/theatre classes (at least at the college level), it should probably be a bit longer, and shoul...

Yikes! I realize that's probably an ominous first word in a review, but the last sentence in this story was one that I wasn't at all ready for. I can understand your confusion about what to do with this piece. It works on a number of different levels, and yet the ending certainly limits what is ultimately done with it. It's wonderfully evocative. I can see both her hurt and her hope, and I can see all the details around her in narrative. And of course, the ending. There's something very Steph...

This is a simple tale, told extremely elegantly. What I like most about well-written first person stories is a singular point of view. Your protagonist justifies virtually everything she does, which fits in perfectly with the character and her situation. I think the protagonist is exceptionally well-drawn. I think she is a good person with flaws, both equally important components. And even more crucial is she doesn't even always see those flaws in herself. How many of us do? As for the title,...

At the risk of beginning a review with a non-constructive superlative: Wow. Just wow. My grandfather was a surgeon and Executive Officer for General Seagrave in Burma during WWII, and he told stories of the women who worked as nurses: the native Karen, Shan, and Kachin women. Though obviously not Chinese, the stories he told about them, and related by them, were remarkably similar in flavor to your poem. While it all works marvelously, there are phrases that just enchant: the deeply aromatic ...

I enjoyed this piece, although many of the characteristics of Jean might be better served by showing more of what happened than just describing it. Perhaps a longer piece? But still, well done.

Wonderful - both in style and in substance. As someone born just a couple of years after the one here, your feel for the nuances of the time are spot-on. The story moves well, never bogging down, and the ending is just perfect. Not a huge, crashing, stunning scream of an ending, but the simple straightforward discovery. Much more captivating that way. I'm going to read the sequel right away.

A number of very interesting images here. I was taken mostly by the cold, sterile phrases up against the warm intentions ('Cold...hands blue.../pulse red veins' for example). Same pattern for the cold middle three stanzas framed by the relative warmth of the first and last. For me the positive served to accentuate the negative feelings welled up by the deceased in life. A very effective (if a bit too brief - it seems a bit rollercoaster-like in emotion) exhalation of the departed - One last b...

This was WONDERFUL! I realize that's not what you were looking for in a review of this, but I needed to share that..;) In fact, I shared your writing with my girlfriend and our 16 yr old son, seeing as I'm more than 30 years past being a YA. They loved it too. I think the fact that the storyteller is so engaging far outweighs the fact that the protagonist is just 4. If anything, I think it can be almost nostalgic for a YA reader to think about childhood. So yes, I think it will interest young...

Very good. We often finish, but hardly ever end our really good stories. Well done.