This story plays itself out with a wry poking fun at a bubbling do-gooder CEO character who founds a recycling company for making “high fashion and found objects into exquisite jewelry.”

My selections were motivated in great part by my emotional response to these pieces. Whether it was the style, the moral, the content, or some happy mix, these works will make you feel and make you think. At the end of the day, I believe that’s the point of it all.

I’ve found something to admire in nearly every piece that comes up in the Recent Stories

When we look back on a situation that escalated badly, we often try to attribute meanings and motives, while the reality is often messier and less clearly defined.

Subtle, tragic, beautiful

I concern myself with works that speak only for themselves.

To capture some spark of life on the page using nothing but words is for me, one of the greatest forms of alchemy.

I changed tactics and decided to select stories that involved lists, litanies and catalogs.

The tradition of lists is as old as Homer. Lists are flexible and have great appeal to writers, compressing quantities of information in a small space.

Susan Sontag said, “A writer is someone who pays attention to the world — a writer is a professional observer.” The stories I’ve chosen prove Susan’s point.

What a reader views one way, another sees from an entirely different angle. As The Editor’s Eye, I set out to be objective, to make myself available to what is written between the lines, or beneath.