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A s an associate editor of a literary journal I am asked to read many stories. I think I am an intelligent reader. Still, the decisions I make often seem arbitrary and unfair. All the effort that went into the writing of this or that story, and I'm rejecting it! This, even though I have been reading fiction for decades and believe I have developed a good nose for superior storytelling. Mostly I look for strong characterization - characters whose intrigues, desires and entanglements remain with me long after the reading experience is over - an emotional connection, convincing dialogue, a flair for language, and a sequence of events that keeps me wondering what's going to happen next. But a story does not need all of these elements to be successful, and occasionally I find myself drawn to a story that glibly and gleefully trashes the "rules" (whatever those are), and chastises me for clinging to preferences and expectations that are, I must confess, pretty darn ordinary.

A fiction contest ups the stakes and forces the final judge into an unenviable "either/or" situation. Backed into a corner, how does one choose between the story of a troubled inner-city teenager obsessed with rap music, daughter of a drug-addled high-school dropout mother, but who loves her younger brother more than her own life, and the story set in 19^th-century Lithuania narrated by an elderly rag-picker who out of nowhere develops an overwhelming sense of dread, and tries to convince his family to "Leave, leave, leave, before it's too late!"? Both are compelling, filled with convincing detail and interesting language, suspenseful, and memorable. How to choose? In the end, it is the gut that does the choosing. Today the gut likes apples more than oranges (tomorrow it might be the other way around). Intellect goes out the window and what we're left with is feeling, which, after all, is the true basis of all genuine art.

So I won't try to justify my selections for the top three stories submitted to the 2007 Sheldon Currie Fiction Contest, except to say that none of them shoots for the stars, but each depicts a narrow slice of life in a manner that is entertaining, emotionally involving, intellectually enriching, and artistically satisfying. Maybe the gut got it right after all.

"Right Before Your Eyes" is that rare thing, a story narrated in the second person. This one follows its romantically hapless, emotionally vulnerable young female narrator through a sexually charged relationship that leaves her depleted and wondering, as we all do at some point, what she wants and where she's going. The narrative is impeccably paced, churning with propulsive energy and crammed with sensual detail. And the verbs. All you writing students out there: Pay attention to the verbs!

"Latkes" is a confident story that reaches back three generations to a time when the supernatural intervened in people's lives and no one thought much of it. Classic Jewish humour in an Old-World setting filtered though a contemporary consciousness. But the story is told with such unabashed affection and chutzpah that everyone can be in on the joke.

"Wayfaring Stranger" depicts the coming together of Liz and Dave, two lonely souls who have shared the same circle of friends for many years, but through personal weakness, bad luck, and poor choices, have never been able to make the ultimate commitment to each other. Here, they manage to do it. In this story there are no linguistic pyrotechnics or structural innovations on display. The narrative is old-fashioned and emotionally restrained. The language is subtle. Liz and Dave seem to struggle to hide themselves from us and from each other. But only the most cold-hearted reader will not be drawn in. I found myself rooting for these two.