Scenes From The Literary Blacklist

In 2022, we were the fiction co-editors for Crab Creek Review, a long-standing, independent literary magazine. Crab Creek Review is the kind of small publication where writers get their first break and, hopefully, go on to literary stardom and a book deal. Like most fiction editors, we were volunteers, and that year we read over three hundred submissions. Among them, we fell in love with a short story that re-interpreted the tale of the Lone Ranger—the iconic masked lawman of 1930s Westerns who fought villainy in the constant company of his trusty Native American sidekick, Tonto. In the opening line, Tonto declares, “Me not happy.”