This issue was originally going to feature mice in the title — you know the ones. It occurred to me, though, that I didn't want to read about mice in the submissions for this round. Despite being weaned on Brian Jacques as a child, I know there are different languages for different animals, and that there's always been something about wolves that draws us as human beings. Vicious, misunderstood, social, demonic, intuitive, protective, wily, epic, anti-heroic -- somewhere in the space between all these opposing concepts, we catch glimpses of strange and familiar creatures.

Let's say there are 8,000 wolves in Alaska. Multiplying by 365, that's about 3 million wolf-days of activity a year. Researchers may see something like 75 different wolves over a period of 25 or 30 hours. That's about 90 wolf-days. Observed behavior amounts to about three one-thousandths of 1 percent of wolf behavior. The deductions made from such observations represent good guesses, and indicate how incomplete is our sense of worlds outside our own.

Barry Lopez, Arctic Dreams

"The Woodland Fairies of Main Street" by Yotam Schachter: When I turned around, she was just hovering in the air. This tiny little woman in a tiny little green dress holding the cutest little .44 Magnum pistol.

"Changes" by Julia Wainwright: Colin wondered whether a person could be two things at once. Perhaps there was a part of himself that had always been there, lying hidden in the darkness, where it couldn't be seen. What does it take, he thought, for something to really change?

"Lone Wolves" by Kris Burgess: The city is full of them.

"Postcard from New York" by Meisje R.: A photocartoon consisting of a handful of NYC postcards, a bobblehead doll, and a smirk.

"felled trees" by Jereeza: Charcoal, ink & wash, white tempera, and white-out tape.