‘To the Next Girl Who Dates W’
— Reneé Bibby
I did not go looking for a story about heartache. I did not go looking for a story about love. About as black-hearted as they come, I’m rarely enticed by narratives focused on romantic relationships, yet here I am recommending Jane Dickenson’s ‘To the Next Girl Who Dates W.’ With her sharp, cookie-fortune-short first sentence, “You will most likely meet him somewhere charming,” Dickenson charmed me into reading and enjoying what I usually dislike the most. Purely from a plot perspective, not much happens that we haven’t all lived through or heard before: man and woman meet, a bit of romantic pas de deux, the connection fizzes out—but Dickenson’s unconventional second-person narrator sidesteps treacle, just as the occasionally unconventional grammar gives the story a grit and liveliness that offsets any too-sweetness. Don’t get me wrong: the story isn’t somber; in fact, by masterfully pulling a thread about a Halloween prop through the entire piece, Dickenson does what every great story should do—it made me feel.