Summer 2006
Edited by Kevin Standifer

If spring is for lovers, what does that leave for summer? The heat permeates us as we walk the streets, becoming part of our very beings, changing the way we think. If the unrelenting cold of winter drains the spirits, what does that mean for the oppressive heat? Is it happiness or mania that overtakes us? In the five pieces in this edition of SWELL, writers explore the delirium of the season explicitly--as in that paradise of youth, the swimming pool--or in more subtle ways. What drives a person to carry on valiantly through an absurdly terrible date, or to love another person with whom they've never had a conversation? What possesses two men to kill another man? Perhaps the heat of summer only draws out a beast in us that lies mostly dormant, one with two faces: one beautiful and one terrible.