The Spring 2013 issue of the Apple Valley Review (April 2, 2013)

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The Spring 2013 issue of the journal features short fiction by Jessica Rafalko, Daniel Ellis, Scott David, and Paul Pekin; a series of three short essays by Laura Vrcek; poetry by Lyn Lifshin, Sharlene Teo, Priscilla Atkins, Christina Frei, Jada Ach, Iain Macdonald, Claudia Serea, Pádrí Veum, and Gail Peck; and artwork by modern Russian landscape painter Dmitry Levin.

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.

Let's Explore Diabetes with Owls

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Let's Explore Diabetes with Owls: Essays, Etc. by David Sedaris (Little, Brown and Company, 2013).

My favorite essay was "A Guy Walks into a Bar Car" (pp. 123-137), which was originally published in The New Yorker as "Guy Walks into a Bar Car" on April 20, 2009.

My other favorites were "Memory Laps" (pp. 27-41), "Easy, Tiger" (pp. 77-86) and "Laugh, Kookaburra" (pp. 87-99), which were also originally published in The New Yorker.

"The Thing Is" by Ellen Bass

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The Thing Is

to love life, to love it even
when you have no stomach for it
and everything you've held dear
crumbles like burnt paper in your hands . . .

"The Thing Is," a poem by Ellen Bass, continued online in The Writer's Almanac or in print in her collection Mules of Love (BOA Editions, 2002).