Halflife, a collection of poems by Meghan O'Rourke

~
The blue square of light
in the window across the street
never goes dark--

the cathodes, the cordage, the atoms
working the hem of dusk--
traveling past the cranes and the docks

and the soiled oyster beds, 
the trees loaded with radium, 
colors like guns, 

. . . 

I came through the sodium streets
past the diners, a minister idly turning his glass, 
service stations, gas, cars sharp in the light.

How long will the light go on?
Longer than you.  Still you ought to live like a city, 
rich and fierce at the center.

--From "Halflife," a poem by Meghan O'Rourke, first published in the magazine Poetry (September 2005) and reprinted in her collection Halflife (W.W. Norton & Company, 2007), pp. 23-24.

Two reports on true crime, and then some less-serious short stories

~
Vincent Smothers thought that it would be a job like any other.  In the summer of 2007, he told me, his friend Marzell Black asked him for a gun for his mother's boyfriend.  Smothers didn't sell guns, and he told him so.  A few months later, Marzell amended his request, saying, "That dude who was looking for a gun?  He asked me how much he would have to pay to kill somebody."  A murder Smothers could handle.  "Marzell wasn't the killing type," he said.  "I told him, 'That's not something for you to do.  I'll talk to him and see what this is all about.'"
--From "The Hit Man's Tale," nonfiction by Nadya Labi, The New Yorker (October 15, 2012), pp. 58-67.

Amy Bishop, a neurobiologist at the University of Alabama in Huntsville, sat down at the conference table just moments before the faculty meeting began.  It was three o'clock on February 12, 2010, and thirteen professors and staff members in the biology department had crowded into a windowless conference room on the third floor of the Shelby Center for Science and Technology.
--From "A Loaded Gun," nonfiction by Patrick Radden Keefe, The New Yorker (February 11 & 18, 2013), pp. 70-87.

Boog is very good at making words.  For example, last week he showed off his new picture at the Main Cave.  Everyone was expecting it to be a horse or a bear (all his pictures so far have been horses, bears, or a mix of horses and bears).  But this picture was not of any animal.  It was just a bunch of red streaks.  People were angry.  
          "I wanted animals," the Old Person said.  "Where are the animals?"
          It was bad situation.  I thought that Boog would lose his job or maybe be killed by stones.  But then Boog stood on a rock and spoke.
--From "I Love Girl," a story by Simon Rich from the Shouts & Murmurs column, The New Yorker (December 17, 2012), pp. 43-45.

The summer school assignment, the fucking fucking summer school third paper of ten, and if you didn't get at least a C on the first nine, you had to write eleven papers, the fucking teacher wadding up her big fat lips so they looked like a carnation, her lips that she'd use to pout at your inadequacy . . . this paper, to hold their interest, was supposed to be about Magical Realism, and although you didn't have to read all of the Márquez book the teacher sooooooo loved, she had distributed several paragraphs from the book in which weird things happened, and your paper was supposed to go on forever, like the writer, then have the clouds howl, or something.  

--From "What Magical Realism Would Be," the first story in The State We're In: Maine Stories, a collection by Ann Beattie (Scribner, 2015).

The Fall 2015 issue of the Apple Valley Review

~
The Fall 2015 issue of the journal features short fiction by Sue Hyon Bae and Seyed Ali Shojaei; essays by Megan Taylor; poetry by Bethany Bowman, Arfah Daud, Marianne Koluda Hansen, Benny Andersen, Knud Sørensen, Darren C. Demaree, Danielle Hanson, Jennifer MacBain-Stephens, Richard Stolorow, José Angel Araguz, Carl Boon, Laura Lee Washburn, David Antonio Moody, Priscilla Atkins, Calvin Ahlgren, and Jack Cooper; and a cover photograph from the Westbury Court Garden by Pauline Eccles.

The Apple Valley Review is a semiannual online literary journal.  The current issue, previous issues, subscription information, and complete submission guidelines are available at www.applevalleyreview.com.

An essay, three short stories, and a poem

~
Does there come a day in every man's life when he looks around and says to himself, "I've got to weed out some of these owls"?
--From "Understanding Owls," a reflection by David Sedaris, The New Yorker (October 22, 2012), pp. 40-43.  (In a different form, this piece was later reprinted in Let's Explore Diabetes with Owls.)

Driving across the Utah desert on I-70, James hit a butterfly with his car.
--From "Mayfly," a short story by Kevin Canty, The New Yorker (January 28, 2013), pp. 64-69.

It was at the tube station that he met the Angolans who would arrange his marriage, exactly two years and three days after he had arrived in England; he kept count.
--From "Checking Out," a short story by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, The New Yorker (March 18, 2013), pp. 66-73.

I was grown up now, married, with a family of my own, but still the Ormsons wanted to see me, just like always. 
--From "Here's a Little Something to Remember Me By," a short story by Dan Chaon, first published in Other Voices and reprinted in his story collection Among the Missing (Ballantine/Random House, 2001), p. 160-186.

The dove brought news
of the end of the flood, an olive leaf
in her mouth, like a man holding a letter . . .  
--From "The Dove," a poem by Yehuda Amichai, translated from the Hebrew by Bernard Horn, The New Yorker (March 18, 2013), p. 63.

Postcard fiction, three poems, and a novel

~
My Dad dropped me off in the car and went outside, talking on the phone with my mother.  They are fighting (L !!!!!!!).  Three reasons they're fighting: . . . 
--From "My Daughter's Diary Entry," postcard fiction by Margarita Meklina, First Class Literary Magazine (August 11, 2015).

pressed full-length against the screen unzipping it
for a better grip to help him help himself to the seed and the suet
slung high under the eave . . .
--From "Bear," a poem by Ellen Bryant Voigt, The New Yorker (November 26, 2012), p. 61.

We lived next to an all-boys' high school. 
My uncles wore its uniform before
they put on army fatigues.  I built
toad temples with crushed dandelions and dirt
and the schoolboys kicked them apart . . .  
--From "Raising Children," a poem by Sue Hyon Bae, Spires, Volume 21, Issue 1 (Spring 2011), p. 18.

The announcement arrived during dinner 
and we thought we would have to miss our evening tv shows
but our cab driver, bless his reckless heart, 
had his GPS rigged to our weeklies. . . 
--From "A Distant Relative's Wake," a poem by Sue Hyon Bae, Spires, Volume 20, Issue 2 (Fall 2010), pp. 31-32.

When I was a little girl of six or seven I was always scared when we passed the lions on our way out of town.  I was sure Lucifer felt as I did, for he always put on speed at that very place, and I did not realize until much later it was because my grandfather whipped him up sharply on the way down the gentle slope past the gateway where the lions were, and that was because Grandfather was an impatient man.  It was a well-known fact. 
        The lions were yellow and I sat at the rear of the trap dangling my legs, alone or with my brother Jesper, with my back towards Grandfather, watching the lions diminishing up there.  They turned their heads and stared at me with their yellow eyes.  They were made of stone, as were the plinths they lay on, but all the same their staring made my chest burn and gave me a hollow feeling inside.  I could not take my eyes off them.  Each time I tried to look down at the graveled road instead, I turned dizzy and felt I was falling.
        "They're coming!  They're coming!" shouted my brother, who knew all about those lions, and I looked up again and saw them coming.  They tore themselves free of the stone blocks and grew larger, and I jumped off the trap heedless of the speed, grazed my knees on the gravel and ran out into the nearest field.  There were roe deer and stags in the forest beyond the field, and I thought about that as I ran.  
        "Can't you leave the lass alone!" bellowed my grandfather. . . . 
--From To Siberia [Til Sibir], a novel by Per Petterson, translated from the Norwegian by Anne Born (Graywolf Press, 2008; Picador 2009).

A Red Cherry on a White-tiled Floor by Maram al-Massri and poetry from RHINO

~
I am the thief
of sweetmeats displayed in your shop.
My fingers became sticky
but I failed
to drop one
into my mouth.
--From A Red Cherry on a White-tiled Floor [Karazah hamra' 'alá balat abyad], a collection of poetry by Maram al-Massri, published in Arabic with an English translation by Khaled Mattawa (Bloodaxe Books, 2004; Copper Canyon Press, 2007).

As I wander alone on the river path of cinders and cigarettes I am afraid, as I am always afraid, when I spot a man on a bench up ahead, drinking.  
--From "Girls in a Skiff," a prose poem by Maureen O'Brien, RHINO (2015).

Mother is gone.  Only her things remain: 
heart locket in 10K gold engraved
w/cursive J; medium-sized Austrian 
crystal brooch—
--From "Inventory," a poem by Joe Eldridge, RHINO (2015).

When I met LL Cool J I had just quit Fatburger it was a Saturday morning  & not knowing how I would afford to pay for it I drove my new-used powder blue Oldsmobile Cutlass Supreme with my sister to the Sam Goody's off Washington Blvd in South Central adjacent & we met our friend/ex-coworker Squeak who was 17 with glasses & 6 feet tall & nicknamed by the same ex-coworker who nicknamed me Twin 1 & my younger sister Twin 2 . . . 
--From "When I met LL Cool J I had just quit Fatburger," a poem by Khadijah Queen, RHINO (2015).

i'm bent over / the sidewalk weeping / outside the public theatre / you stand above me / horse built from a father's beer cans / you still have that other man's mouth on you / i can taste it / with the back of my hands / it's my fault / always is / i say do what you will / + your will is done / so what i was born drunk + mean with my teeth knocked out . . . 
--From "essay on crying in public," a piece by sam sax, RHINO (2015).

The Year of Magical Thinking by Joan Didion

~
Nine months and five days ago, at approximately nine o'clock on the evening of December 30, 2003, my husband, John Gregory Dunne, appeared to (or did) experience, at the table where he and I had just sat down to dinner in the living room of our apartment in New York, a sudden massive coronary event that caused his death.  Our only child, Quintana, had been for the previous five nights unconscious in an intensive care unit at Beth Israel Medical Center's Singer Division, at that time a hospital on East End Avenue (it closed in August 2004) more commonly known as "Beth Israel North" or "the old Doctors' Hospital," where what had seemed a case of December flu sufficiently severe to take her to an emergency room on Christmas morning had exploded into pneumonia and septic shock.  This is my attempt to make sense of the period that followed, weeks and then months that cut loose any fixed idea I had ever had about death, about illness, about probability and luck, about good fortune and bad, about marriage and children and memory, about grief, about the ways in which people do and do not deal with the fact that life ends, about the shallowness of sanity, about life itself.
--From The Year of Magical Thinking, a memoir by Joan Didion (Knopf/Random House/Vintage, 2006).  This passage is from pages 6 and 7 of the Vintage paperback.

        July 26 2010.
        Today would be her wedding anniversary.
        Seven years ago today we took the leis from the florist's boxes and shook the water in which they were packed onto the grass outside the Cathedral of St. John the Divine on Amsterdam Avenue.  The white peacock spread his fan.  The organ sounded.  She wove white stephanotis into the thick braid that hung down her back.  She dropped the tulle veil over her head and the stephanotis loosened and fell.  The plumeria blossom tattooed just below her shoulder showed through the tulle.  "Let's do it," she whispered.  
--From Blue Nights, a memoir by Joan Didion (Knopf/Random House/Vintage, 2011).  This passage is from page 5 of the Vintage paperback.

Children's voices in the orchard
Between the blossom- and the fruit-time: 
--From "New Hampshire," a poem by T.S. Eliot, referenced on page 163 of Blue Nights.  (The other poem mentioned there is "Domination of Black" by Wallace Stevens.)

Fiction by Meg Pokrass and other short pieces from First Class Literary Magazine and Right Hand Pointing

~
We waited for the phone to ring, for money to plump itself up and walk through our door.  Plenty of moments passed with yarn and crochet hooks.  I made hats that never fit and were put away in a trunk with the old games we didn't have the energy to play.  
--From "Diagram," one of ten pieces of microfiction by Meg Pokrass, FRiGG (Spring 2009).  

My husband, Gordon, looked as though he'd found religion—as though he'd never tasted real food before this beef stew meal at Angie and Ron's.  He appeared to be sucking his teeth after every bite, taking his time, thinking about what he'd sucked—then stabbing a new forkful.  
--From "I Married This," short fiction by Meg Pokrass, The Literarian, Issue 9.

Look at the Korean woman.  How she uses her teeth to pull a prawn off a chopstick.  How she catches the tail from her mouth on a fork.  
--From "Ajumma," postcard nonfiction by Peyton Lunzer, First Class Literary Magazine (January 5, 2015).

I ask 
if you
have put
the sheets
I washed
back on 
the guest
bed . . .
--From "The Problem," postcard poetry by Rebecca Lartigue, First Class Literary Magazine (July 27, 2015).

At Subway, I politely but firmly order a drink and cookie with my sandwich hoping they don't say anything.  And the cashier always says "the meal comes with a drink and TWO cookies."  And I'm always like "yeah, I just don't need two cookies."  And they're always like "well you're paying for two cookies.  It's actually more to just get one." 
--From The Note for Issue 89 of the journal, by Claire Wisely, Right Hand Pointing, Issue 89 (2015).

Because the world is mean . . .
--From "I Study Her Like an Escape Plan," a poem under 25 words by Glen Armstrong, Right Hand Pointing, Issue 89 (2015).

Scrawled on the side . . .
--From "Graffiti," a poem under 25 words by Tammy Bendetti, Right Hand Pointing, Issue 89 (2015).

Nobody showed up for the premiere of my play Performing Privacy.  
--From three pieces on the concept of "sort" by Mark Cunningham, Right Hand Pointing, Issue 88 (2015).

"Get It Back for Me," a short story by Elizabeth Tallent, and two short pieces by Nicole Rollender and Rachel Peters

~
The mashed potatoes had dried in peaks, the roast beef was both gray and, depressed with a fork, bleeding.  Shining small peas each contained a glint of unthawed, original cold as brilliant and brief-lived as a snowflakes's.  How she managed this, he said, was beyond him.  Half the food cooked to death, half the food raw.  She knew he was coming home.  All she had to do, all she had to do was have dinner ready.  His answer to her: One night, one night he'd like to come home to some kind of order.  One night, one night of his life he'd like his wife to be happy to see him.  The other guys' wives were happy when they walked in the door.  She said, How did he know anyone else was so happy?  How did he know?  He wasn't walking in their doors, he was walking in this door, and all he could really talk about was this life, and he said they had to be happier than this, had to be.  
--From "Get It Back for Me," a short story by Elizabeth Tallent, first published in Lear's and reprinted in her story collection Honey (Vintage, 1993), pp. 101-117.

You wanted 
to be buried in the green dress

you always wore with pearls.  We'd sit outside your back
door, watching bats swing over the lake.
--From "Scattering," a poem by Nicole Rollender, Linebreak (April 21, 2015).

I hate writing.  Other people go to the gym after work, or see friends on the weekend, and they don't walk around not realizing they have pens in their hair and under their bra straps.  A friend actually told me once that sometimes he has nothing in his head.  Nothing at all.  Radio silence.  I can't imagine how wonderful that must feel.  Other people sleep at night.  Other people read a good book just for the story.  Other people go entire weeks without an e-mail that says you're not a good fit, not quite what they're looking for, the tone just isn't right.  But best of luck elsewhere.  Other people are allowed to keep their own secrets.  
--From "Why I Write: Rachel Peters," an essay by Rachel Peters for the "Why I Write" column, Fiction Southeast (June 26, 2015).

Laura van den Berg's second collection of short stories

~
The day my husband left me, I followed a trio of acrobats around the city of Paris.  The whole time my husband had been talking--telling me, presumably, why he was leaving--I was watching these acrobats do backflips and handstands in synchrony, an open violin case at their feet.  They wore black masks over their eyes and white face paint.  The little gold bells that hung from the sleeves of their red silk jumpsuits jingled like wind chimes.  My husband and I were in the Jardin des Tuileries, sitting on a bench underneath a tree.  We had come to Paris for the weekend, to revive our marriage.  It was what the books and the couples counselor had recommended.  The day he left was our last day there.  We were, in fact, supposed to fly home that evening. 
--From "Acrobat," a short story by Laura van den Berg, first published in American Short Fiction and reprinted in her collection The Isle of Youth (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2013), pp. 93-116.

Ocean of Words: Stories by Ha Jin, a poem by Rachel Morgan, and stories by Anya Groner, Natalie Rogers, and Annie Hartnett

~
But the two sisters didn't hesitate at all and started wheeling before us so naturally.  They enacted "The Korean People Love Great Leader Chairman Mao," a sort of Loyalty Dance.  Their long silk skirts waved around while their mother clapped her small hands, crying, "Chaota!  Chaota!"  That means "wonderful" in Korean.  The flame of the kerosene lamp was flickering with the women's movements.  Their shadows were flowing on the floor and the walls as if the whole house was revolving. 
          When they finished, they bowed to us, and we all applauded.  Shunji looked like a young bride in her loose, white dress.
          Guzhe and Guhua, Uncle Piao's grandsons, began to set off firecrackers outside.  I went out to join them.  They dared not light the big ones, so I helped them.  With a burning incense stick, I launched the double-bang crackers into the sky one by one.  It was snowing lightly.  The air smelled of gunpowder as clusters of explosions bloomed among the dim stars.  
--From Ocean of Words, a collection of short stories by Ha Jin (Vintage, 1998).  This segment is from "Uncle Piao's Birthday Dinners," pp. 28-29.

Amy Brown's mother was the bus driver, and so to get to her birthday party all the girls had to do was stay on the bus.  Amy Brown's mother yelled, Sit your asses down.  The girls leaned headfirst over the vinyl seats.  No one sat.  Amy sat.  The sun set.  The suburbs stopped.  Amy Brown's trailer was on the highway.  Amy Brown's mother parked the bus in the grass.
--From "Wood Swallows," a short story by Anya Groner, NANO Fiction (May 8, 2015).

In a child's vision marriage is a house.  Fine lines bisect each plane, clean bleak, like the edge of a farmhouse: flat land, flashes of power lines, old trucks lopsided in gravel, corn, soy, soy, corn.
--From "The Marriage Letters," a poem by Rachel Morgan, DIAGRAM, 14.1.

When I was a child, my mother worried that I would eventually abandon her for the company of friends. But when I still had not made a friend by the end of the second grade, she worried about my social ineptness. Mom blamed my diffidence on my genes. She believed that I felt self-conscious about being bun jan bun gwai, "half-human, half-ghost." Whatever the cause, she knew that I needed help.
          "Little girl," she said in Cantonese. "Is there anyone you'd like to be friends with?"
          She had just served Joe and me our dinner—fried spam over rice. I swallowed a juicy bite of spam and thought of Molly, who sat across from me in Mrs. Singer's class. I liked Molly because she was pretty, and because whenever she chatted with the other kids at our table, she also glanced at me. Her eyes always remembered that I was there.
          "There's one girl," I said. "But she already has a best friend."
          "Joe," Mom said. "Ask your sister what she's mumbling about."
          "I can't be best friends with Molly," I replied, "because she already has a best friend, Chloe."
          "Joe," Mom said. "Tell your sister that if she doesn't want to end up all alone, she better change her attitude."
--From "One-Legged Crow," a short story by Natalie Rogers, New Orleans Review (June 2015).

I called my grandma in Florida.  It was bound to happen, she sighed.  He just needs a hobby, she explained.  But he's wearing your reading glasses, I said, and he has perfect vision.  She suggested I get him a cat.  I hung up the phone when I heard my father clicking knitting needles in the living room.
--From "Dad Grandma," a short story by Annie Hartnett, NANO Fiction (May 10, 2015).

A novel by Per Petterson, stories by Alice Munro and Amy Hempel, and a memoir by Mary Karr

~
Early November.  It's nine o'clock.  The titmice are banging against the window.  Sometimes they fly dizzily off after the impact, other times they fall and lie struggling in the new snow until they can take off again.  I don't know what they want that I have.  
--From Out Stealing Horses, a novel by Per Petterson, translated from the Norwegian by Anne Born (Picador, 2008; Copyright 2003/English translation 2005; first published in the United States by Graywolf Press).

Muriel Snow had not been Millicent's first choice for best friend.  In the early days of her marriage she had set her sights high.  Mrs. Lawyer Nesbitt.  Mrs. Dr. Finnegan.  Mrs. Doud.  They let her take on a donkey's load of work in the Women's Auxiliary at the church, but they never asked her to their tea parties.  She was never inside their houses, unless it was to a meeting.  Porter was a farmer.  No matter how many farms he owned, a farmer.  She should have known.  
--From "A Real Life," a short story by Alice Munro, first published as "A Form of Marriage" in The New Yorker and reprinted in Open Secrets (Knopf, 1994), pp. 52-80.

On the last night of the marriage, my husband and I went to the ballet.  We sat behind a blind man; his guide dog, in harness, lay beside him in the aisle of the theater.  I could not keep my attention on the performance; instead, I watched the guide dog watch the performance.  Throughout the evening, the dog's head moved, following the dancers across the stage.  Every so often the dog would whimper slightly.  "Because he can hear high notes we can't?" my husband said.  "No," I said, "because he was disappointed in the choreography."
--From "The Dog of the Marriage," a short story in four parts by Amy Hempel, from her collection The Dog of the Marriage: Stories (Scribner, 2005), pp. 59-83.  Part 1 was published as "Now I Can See the Moon" in Elle, and Part 4 was first published in The Mississippi Review.   

I knew that neither of my parents was coming.  Daddy was working the graveyard shift, and the sheriff said that his deputy had driven out to the plant to try and track him down.  Mother had been taken Away--he further told us--for being Nervous.   
--From The Liars' Club, a memoir by Mary Karr (Penguin, 1995).

Two stories from Granta and a novel by Ha Jin

~
I gave up heroin and went home and began the methadone treatment administered at the outpatient clinic and I didn't have much else to do except get up each morning and watch TV and try to sleep at night, but I couldn't, something made me unable to close my eyes and rest, and that was my routine, until one day I couldn't stand it any more and I bought myself a pair of black swimming trunks at a store in the centre of town and I went to the beach, wearing the trunks and with a towel and a magazine, and I spread my towel not too far from the water and then I lay down and spent a while trying to decide whether to go into the water or not . . .  
--From "Beach," a short story by Roberto Bolaño, translated from the Spanish by Natasha Wimmer, Granta, Number 114 (July 18, 2011). 

Some time ago, when my husband went to stay at the American Academy in Rome in order to do research, I accompanied him because I had never seen the Roman Forum.  I had a book Harold had given me for my birthday that showed how the ruins looked in the present day, and each page also had its own transparent sheet with drawings that filled in what was missing, or completed the fragments that remained, so you could see what the scene had looked like in ancient times. . . .  At dinner, our first night there, we were introduced to other visitors, and here is where the story starts: they were the parents of a young man to whom our daughter, Angela, had briefly been engaged at the end of her senior year at Yale--so briefly that I had never met his parents, though Harold and Donald Stipley had a passing acquaintance.  
--From "Lavande," a short story by Ann Beattie, Granta, Number 94 (December 10, 2008).   

Finally Taotao got his passport and visa.  For weeks his parents had feared that China, even if not closing the door outright, would restrict the outflow of people.  After the Tiananmen massacre on June 4, 1989, all the American airlines except United had canceled their flights to Beijing and Shanghai.  At the good news, Pingping burst into tears.  She quickly rinsed the colander in which she had drained the shredded turnip for her jellyfish salad, took off her apron, and set out with her husband, Nan Wu, for the town center of Woodland, where the office of Travel International was located.
--From A Free Life, a novel by Ha Jin (Pantheon Books, 2007). 

Five poems from Rattle, short stories from Post Road Magazine and One Story, and a novel

~
One fear replaces another.  Each night now I wake 
in fear that I've crushed her in bed.  Sometimes it's so bad 
I wake the husband and the two of us, in the slight light 
of the streetlight, are in there, in the king bed digging, 
through pillows and sheets, looking for our baby.
Digging and digging as if our bed was the terrible ground
beneath the floorboards.  We sweat, breathe heavy; 
I'm crying.   

The power to kill something is so strong up in me, 
and so strange to be right next to the part of me
that can love something this much. . . . 
--From "She Rings Like a Bell Through the Night," a poem by Jan LaPerle, Rattle, Number 35 (Summer 2011).

Mostly love is about grunt work,
heaving unwieldy pieces of furniture 
up a trackless mountain . . .
--From "Where We Are Most Tender," a poem by Francesca Bell, Rattle, Number 40 (Summer 2013).

The day I finally rose staggering
from our bed of kryptonite . . . 
--From "First Responders," a poem by Francesca Bell, Rattle, Number 35 (Summer 2011).

In a black          tank-top 
my man             can say
just about         anything.
--From "In a Black Tank Top," a poem by Danielle DeTiberus, Rattle, Number 43 (Spring 2014).  "In a Black Tank Top" was chosen by Sherman Alexie for Best American Poetry 2015.

I gave the waitress in the café a fifty & she gave me my change got sidetracked & left the fifty on the counter all alone with me & my conscience . . . 
--From "A Poem for Uncertainties," a poem by Mark Terrill, Rattle, Number 27 (Summer 2007).

She's eating the scones and I'm watching, sipping black tea with milk but no sugar.  Actually, she hasn't quite started yet.  She's still spreading clotted cream on each half of the split scone, then homemade jam on top of that.  As she does this, she warns me she might make groaning noises.  Just so, you know, I know.  That's fine, I shrug, feeling little bits of me catch fire.  I've got the teacup in my hand, my finger crooked in the little handle that's too small for it so the circulation's getting cut off.  I watch her bite into the scone with her little bunny teeth.  I watch gobs of clotted cream catch in either corner of her lip.  She tilts her head back, closes her eyes, starts to make what must be the groaning noises.  I pour myself more tea and cup it in both hands like it's warming them, even though it's gone cold.  
--From "The Girl I Hate," a short story by Mona Awad, Post Road Magazine, Issue 27.

Consider the look on Whatsherface's face when I bought her a well drink and told her I lived on a sailboat.  Maybe my life wasn't so bad. . . . All considered, it was a damp version of pretty okay.  
          But then she asked what I did for work, and I told her.
          "I pump fuel at the marina fuel dock for eight dollars an hour, but mostly I read magazines and eat sandwiches, or watch my dog laze in the sun and lick pelican shit off the cement."
          The look changed, got scrunchier.  
--From "All Lateral," a short story by Matt Sumell, first published in One Story, Volume 12, Number 11 (January 19, 2015).  

It was a short one-paragraph item in the morning edition.  A friend rang me up and read it to me.  Nothing special.  Something a rookie reporter fresh out of college might've written for practice.
          The date, a street corner, a person driving a truck, a pedestrian, a casualty, an investigation of possible negligence.
          Sounded like one of those poems on the inner flap of a magazine.  
          "Where's the funeral?" I asked.  
          "You got me," he said.  "Did she even have a family?" 
--From A Wild Sheep Chase, a novel by Haruki Murakami, translated from the Japanese by Alfred Birnbaum (Vintage Books, 1989).  

The Spring 2015 issue of the Apple Valley Review

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The Spring 2015 issue of the journal features poetry by Renee Emerson, Kevin Miller, Kevin McLellan, Theodore Worozbyt, Jessica de Koninck, Daryl Farmer, P M F Johnson, Aaron Bauer, and Hal Sirowitz; an essay by Gail Peck; short fiction by Robert Radin; and a self-portrait by cover artist Zinaida Serebriakova.

The Apple Valley Review is a semiannual online literary journal.  The current issue, previous issues, subscription information, and complete submission guidelines are available at www.applevalleyreview.com.

Wild Tales (A collection of six shorter films written and directed by Damián Szifron)

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Wild Tales (Relatos salvajes), in Spanish with English subtitles, written and directed by Damián Szifron, produced by Agustín Almodóvar and Pedro Almodóvar.  Everything about this collection was outstanding: the writing, direction, cinematography, acting, pacing, and the order of the pieces. 

The film is set in Argentina and has an excellent ensemble cast.  The actors included María Marull in “Pasternak,” Rita Cortese and Julieta Zylberberg as the cook and waitress in “Las Ratas,” Leonardo Sbaraglia and Walter Donado as the drivers in “El más fuerte” (“The Strongest”), Ricardo Darín as the engineer in “Bombita,” Oscar Martínez as Mauricio in “La propuesta” (“The Proposal”), and Erica Rivas and Diego Gentile as Romina and Ariel in “Hasta que la muerte nos separe” ("Until death do us part").  

Wild Tales has been nominated for a long list of awards including an Oscar for Best Foreign Language Film of the Year and the Palme d’Or at the Cannes Film Festival.  It won numerous audience awards at film festivals in the United States and abroad, and it won Best Film, Best Original Screenplay, Best Director, Best Actor/Actress, and Best Supporting Actor from the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences of Argentina. 

   

A story by Austin Bunn, poem by Maxine Scates, and novel by Ha Jin

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. . . The papers arrived from the lawyer yesterday.  Soon I will be officially divorced from Scott.  I'm selling what I can. 
          "You have to come with me to the doctor," my mother says.
          But I have buyers coming.  I'm expecting to get money for my past life.  The pleasures of subtraction, of seeing things go. . . .  
--From "Everything, All at Once," a short story by Austin Bunn, first published in The Sun, Issue 390 (June 2008).  Reprinted in Pushcart Prize XXXIV (2010), pp. 414-424.

. . .   The jets 
are screaming overhead and in the intervals 
after they pass the neighbors are arguing again
and it doesn't matter which house because they all do: 
Big John and his nameless wife, Julia and Ted, 
The Smiths, Rosie and Bob, or Lynne and Jack, 
the ex-Hell's Angels who have settled down 
with their four kids.  They all pretend they can't hear
what the next is yelling but I'm the one who hears
nothing.  My mother is sleeping and my father 
has left for good . . .   
--From "Not There," a poem by Maxine Scates, first published in The American Poetry Review, Volume 37, Issue 4 (July/August 2008), p. 44.  Reprinted in Pushcart Prize XXXIV (2010), pp. 226-227.

Shao Bin felt sick of Dismount Fort, a commune town where he had lived for over six years.  His wife, Meilan, complained that she had to walk two miles to wash clothes on weekends.  She couldn't pedal, so Bin was supposed to take her on the carrier of his bicycle to the Blue Brook.  But this month he worked weekends in the Harvest Fertilizer Plant and couldn't help her.  If only they had lived in Workers' Park, the plant's apartment compound, which was just hundreds of paces away from the waterside. . . .  
--From In the Pond, a novel by Ha Jin (Vintage, 2000).

Miranda July and Raymond Carver

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I drove to the doctor's office as if I was starring in a movie Phillip was watching--windows down, hair blowing, just one hand on the wheel.  When I stopped at red lights, I kept my eyes mysteriously forward.  Who is she? people might have been wondering.  Who is that middle-aged woman in the blue Honda?  I strolled through the parking garage and into the elevator, pressing 12 with a casual, fun-loving finger.  The kind of finger that was up for anything.  
--from The First Bad Man, a novel by Miranda July (Scribner, 2015).  The book is also for sale in The First Bad Man Store, where items mentioned in the novel were auctioned off, with proceeds going to The National Partnership for Women and Families.

THE ESSENCE OF RED

$159.48

SOLD!

“Dr. Broyard rattled open a drawer full of tiny glass bottles and picked one labeled red. I squinted at the perfectly clear liquid. It reminded me a lot of water.

'It’s the essence of red,' he said brusquely. He could sense my skepticism." 

—The First Bad Man, page 3 

Packaged with excerpt; authenticity verified with Miranda July’s signature. 

~

Earl Ober was between jobs as a salesman.  But Doreen, his wife, had gone to work nights as a waitress at a twenty-four-hour coffee shop at the edge of town.  One night, when he was drinking, Earl decided to stop by the coffee shop and have something to eat.  He wanted to see where Doreen worked, and he wanted to see if he could order something on the house. 
--From "They're Not Your Husband," a short story by Raymond Carver, first published in the Chicago Review, Volume 24, Number 4 (Spring 1973) and reprinted in his collection Will You Please Be Quiet, Please? (McGraw-Hill, 1976).  The story appears on pages 22-30 in the Vintage edition from 1992.

Lucky Us, a novel by Amy Bloom

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My father's wife died.  My mother said we should drive down to his place and see what might be in it for us.    
--From Lucky Us, a novel by Amy Bloom (Random House, 2014). 

Faith in Love and Quantum Physics and other poems, short stories by John Jodzio and Raymond Carver

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In one, my brother's in the gutter, 

literally, face up almost floating along

second street after a hard rain, the clouds

finally clearing, the clean stars directing

traffic, his indelibly dirty palm planted 

around a forty, which, in this life, 

is all he ever drank.

In another, my brother isn't wrecked. . . .

--From "Faith in Love and Quantum Physics," a poem by Brittney Scott, first published in Linebreak (February 3, 2015).

 

My roommates are gone for the weekend so I snort one of my mom's blood clotting pills and invite Lindsay over.  When she gets there I take a steak knife and slice open my palm and show her how no blood comes out.  It's a good trick, one my dead brother Alex taught me . . . 

--From "How to Get Goth Girls Hot," a short story by John Jodzio, first published in Fiction Southeast (February 2, 2015).  

That summer Wes rented a furnished house north of Eureka from a recovered alcoholic named Chef.  Then he called to ask me to forget what I had going and to move up there and live with him.  He said he was on the wagon.  I knew about that wagon.  But he wouldn't take no for an answer. . . .

--From "Chef's House," a short story by Raymond Carver, first published in The New Yorker (November 30, 1981) and reprinted in Cathedral (Knopf, 1983), pp. 27-33.

He tells me she's his wife.  But she won't look at me.  She looks at her nails instead.  She and Holits won't sit down, either.  He says they're interested in one of the furnished units.

"How many of you?"  But I'm just saying what I always say.  I know how many.  I saw the two boys in the back seat.  Two and two is four. . . .

--From "The Bridle," a short story by Raymond Carver, first published in The New Yorker (July 19, 1982) and reprinted in Cathedral (Knopf, 1983), pp. 187-208.

When my parents split up, my mom dated so many men

that it now takes two memories to keep them all, mine and

my sister's.  In a recent phone conversation, I said to my sister, 

remember the one who said his tan wasn't his tan but his Cherokee

blood?  Remember how he used to take his place at the dinner table, 

bare-chested?  Why doesn't he wear a shirt, we asked.  And mom said, 

who cares, that's not what matters.  She herself wasn't wearing much, 

a nightgown that might have been lingerie. . . .

--From "Love Stories," a poem by Timothy Schirmer, first published in FRiGG: A Magazine of Fiction and Poetry, Issue 44 (Fall 2014).   

I see a woman that is maybe a man.  Just in case, I practice for poverty.  Just in case, I walk nowhere very slowly.  Once, on a bad day I went for a long walk looking for trouble. . . .  

--From "I see a dog that is maybe a wolf." a poem by Timothy Schirmer, first published in FRiGG: A Magazine of Fiction and Poetry, Issue 44 (Fall 2014).  

A novel by Ha Jin and short stories by Alice Munro, Ethan Canin, and Laura van den Berg

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The solution to my life occurred to me one evening while I was ironing a shirt.  It was simple but audacious.  I went into the living room where my husband was watching television and I said, "I think I ought to have an office. . . ."

--From "The Office," a short story by Alice Munro, first published in The Montrealer and reprinted in Dance of the Happy Shades (The Ryerson Press (Canada), 1968; McGraw-Hill Book Company (United States), 1973), pp. 59-74.

Now that Mary McQuade had come, I pretended not to remember her.  It seemed the wisest thing to do.  She herself said, "If you don't remember me you don't remember much," but let the matter drop, just once adding, "I bet you never went to your Grandma's house last summer.  I bet you don't remember that either. . . ."  

 --From "Images," a short story by Alice Munro, published in Dance of the Happy Shades (The Ryerson Press (Canada), 1968; McGraw-Hill Book Company (United States), 1973), pp. 30-43. 

Everybody was surprised when Professor Yang suffered a stroke in the spring of 1989. . . .  His stroke unsettled me, because I was engaged to his daughter, Meimei, and under his guidance I had been studying for the Ph.D. entrance exams for the classical literature program at Beijing University.  I hoped to enroll there so that I could join my fiancée in the capital, where we planned to build our nest.  Mr. Yang's hospitalization disrupted my work, and for a whole week I hadn't sat down to my books, having to go see him every day. . . .   

--From The Crazed, a novel by Ha Jin (Pantheon/Random House, 2002). 

I tell this story not for my own honor, for there is little of that here, and not as a warning, for a man of my calling learns quickly that all warnings are in vain.  Nor do I tell it in apology for St. Benedict's School, for St. Benedict's School needs no apologies.  I tell it only to record certain foretellable incidents in the life of a well-known man, in the event that the brief candle of his days may sometime come under scrutiny of another student of history.  That is all.  This is a story without surprises. . . .  

--From "The Palace Thief," a short story by Ethan Canin, first published in The Paris Review, Number 128 (Fall 1993), and reprinted in The Palace Thief (Random House, 1994), pp. 155-205.

 

...It was my daughter's job to assemble the game board, my husband's to shuffle the cards, and mine to make drinks in the kitchen: Sprite in a highball glass for my daughter, whiskey with no ice for my husband and me.  Every other Friday night, my husband had been the Banker, handling the money, buildings, and title deed cards, but for this game, I had decided to change things up.  Before leaving the kitchen, I plucked an ice cube from the freezer with a little pair of silver tongs and dropped it into his drink. . . . 

--From "The Golden Dragon Express," a short story by Laura van den Berg, first published in Storyglossia, Issue 27 (March 2008), and reprinted in There Will Be No More Good Nights Without Good Nights (Origami Zoo Press, 2012), pp. 27-29.