Barrelhouse is happy to be the latest lit mag to participate in TJ Forrester’s super cool Five Star Literary Stories site/blog/project/awesome thingy.

If you’re not familiar with Five Star, well, you should be. Here’s what happens: a literary magazine nominates a story, one that they consider to be one of their best. They say a few words about their schtick, what they’re looking for, how drunk they were when they decided to start a lit mag, and also about the nominated story — how it fits into their overall thing, some thoughts about that story in particular, etc. Then — here’s where it gets interesting — a third-party reviewer (a writer, an editor, whatever) posts a review of the story.

It’s really a great idea — a chance for writers and readers to not only read some of the best stuff being published by an increasingly wide variety of lit mags (Agni, Eclectica, elimae, Harpur Palate, Hobart, Lamination Colony, Night Train, StorySouth, and many more — those are just a few of my favorites), but it’s also a rare chance to hear what editors are looking for, and what struck them about a particular story. And then you get to read an expert review of that story. That’s a lot of lit for your (no) money.

So anyway, check out Five Star Literary Stories.

Here’s the Barrelhouse edition, with all the attention being paid to Mike Landweber’s Red.

Thanks, TJ! Keep on doing your thing.