AQR (Alaska Quarterly Review) is one of my favorite quarterly journals. The journal is published by the University of Alaska, but it is not student work; rather, it is a university run literary journal open to unsolicited submissions. It consistently features superbly crafted contemporary literature: stories, essays and poems. The journal often contributes several selections to the Pushcart Prize collection. If you don’t know what the Pushcart Prize is and you like to dream of making a little money as a literary writer (by earning grants and prizes), you might do well to take a look. Each year Pushcart Press edits a collection from thousands of submissions sent in by the editors of many small presses. Being published in this collection is not a turnkey road to writerly success, but it’s certainly going to be a strong addition to a writer’s resume. Anyway, I digress. The question was, “What happens when you put a baby in the mail?” Bess Winter imagines such a scenario in her story “Helena, Montana.”

“Helena, Montana” by Bess Winter