Virgin Fiction 2

Wit, pain, honesty, assurance and vigor mark these 20 strong short stories from heretofore-unpublished writers under age 35, the winners of the second annual contest sponsored by the online magazine Salon. Most bring new perspectives, and a sometimes satiric verve, to familiar topics like coming-of-age, screwed-up families, troubled romances, and illness. In Michael R. Carleton's hilarious ""Conversations with a Moose,"" a jilted lover quits his job and hits the road after seeing a TV news report about a moose, spurned in a mating ritual, who heads south to start a new life. ""I'm going to track [the moose] down in the cornfields,"" Carleton's ironically bubbly narrator exclaims, ""and together we'll see what the world has to offer."" In Heather Swain's ""Sushi,"" an American woman new to Japan and attracted to a fish cutter initiates her own bizarre mating ritual with an exchange of fish. Not all these youthful writers focus on youth: Melissa Fraterigo's ""Body, Mine"" follows a woman, her husband and her advancing cancer, its supple prose a perfect match for her melancholic resolve. Readers drawn to literary experiment will appreciate Scott Werve's ""If I Were Lemon Pie,"" about a young actress who has trouble playing a rape victim, and Allison Whittenberg's ""Bloom of Zenobia,"" in which a teenage mom takes a common-law husband at a punk-inspired mock wedding. Quirky details and strong characters give these stories a certain unity despite their diverse voices. (July)