Short stories by Joy Williams, micro-memoirs by Beth Ann Fennelly, and novels by Vivek Shanbhag, Michael Cunningham, and Ben Lerner

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The driver and I got a late start. I usually decide on these excursions the night before, but it was late in the morning when I informed the friend who was coming to visit me for the weekend that I had to cancel . . . 
—From The Pelican Child, a collection of stories by Joy Williams (Knopf, 2025). This is the beginning of the first story, "Flour." 

Ideas like independent thinking and liberal values are all fine in the abstract, but when your child begins to rebel at home, they turn into hot ghee in the mouth—too good to spit out, too painful to swallow.
—From Sakina's Kiss, a novel by Vivek Shanbhag, translated from the Kannada by Srinath Perur (McNally Editions, 2025). Originally published in the Kannada language as Sakinala Muttu in Heggodu, India (Akshara Prakashana, 2021). First published in English in Gurgaon, India (Penguin Random House India, 2023). The line above is from page 57 of the McNally paperback.

When Robbie starts downstairs, from his place to Isabel and Dan's, he finds Isabel on the stairs, sitting with her knees pressed together and her arms wrapped around her knees, as if to make the smallest possible package of herself.
—From Day, a novel by Michael Cunningham (Random House, 2023). This sentence is from page 13 of the hardcover.

I was falling asleep on the train. I was going to interview Thomas, who had just turned ninety. My seat was facing opposite the direction of travel, making it difficult to read his latest book, which I was holding in my hand. It upsets my stomach if I try to read while I'm looking the wrong way—or, as my ten-year-old, Eva, put it on a train to Lublin last summer, if I am "facing the past."
—From Transcription, a novel by Ben Lerner (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2026). I liked the audiobook, too, which was narrated by Seth Numrich.

There wasn't much to do after we'd strolled the porch and ridden a carriage, hence you begged Dad for money so we could hit the tourist drag, but even you didn't think he'd hand over—alongside the usual admonition to look after your little sister—a twenty.
—From The Irish Goodbye, micro-memoirs by Beth Ann Fennelly (W. W. Norton & Company, 2026). This line is from "Dad Gave Us Twenty Dollars, Which Was a Lot in 1979." It was originally published in Notre Dame Review, and it appears in The Irish Goodbye on pages 28 and 29 in the hardcover. 

The Spring 2026 issue of the Apple Valley Review

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The Spring 2026 issue of the Apple Valley Review features a short story by Mary Luna; flash fiction by Lisa Beech Hartz, Wendy Elizabeth Wallace, Jon Acheson, and Kimmy Chang; a memoir by John Picard; and poetry by Julia Lisella, Jackson Burgess, Joshua Tilton, John Minczeski, Sambhunath Chattopadhyay (translated from the Bengali by Kingshuk Sarkar), Renee Emerson, and Igor Monsellato. The cover photograph is by Tim Mossholder.

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.org. 

Poetry by Bri Gearhart Staton and Andrea Cohen, flash fiction by Gary Fincke, and graphic novels by Emma Hunsinger and Edgar Camacho

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Some Saturdays, I'd wake up smokey
and alone
with my coat and my shoes
still on.
—From "Portrait of a Hungover Woman Eating a Tomato Sandwich," a poem by Bri Gearhart Staton, the first-place winner of the Ps & Qs Audio Poem Contest. I was really impressed with the quality of these submissions. Text and audio versions of this and other winning poems are available on the website for Quibble Lit.

What was the name of that bar was it really the Sugar Club is it still here who were we running in from the cold —From "Sugar," a poem by Andrea Cohen, The New Yorker (September 2, 2024), pp. 28-29. 

Jason's mother opens the door to his room to tell him she has a new boyfriend. He is staying overnight now and Jason should know. "Roy doesn't want to scare you or anything if you run into each other in the morning."
—From "Messes," one of two pieces of flash fiction by Gary Fincke, New World Writing Quarterly (January 12, 2026). The second story is "Places." 

You two excited for school to start?
Oh yeah, I really missed saying the Pledge of Allegiance.
—From How It All Ends, a graphic novel by Emma Hunsinger (Greenwillow Books, 2024). Emma Hunsinger wrote and illustrated "How to Draw a Horse," a graphic story that appeared in The New Yorker in 2019. I really liked it and have recommended it to numerous people. This graphic novel, How It All Ends, is in a similar vein. It's actually juvenile fiction, which I didn't realize until I was partway through it, but that's just FYI. It is a story about getting older and is appropriate for any age from middle school on. 

These chilaquiles are really good. Are you sure you don't want some?
—From Onion Skin, a graphic novel by Edgar Camacho (Top Shelf Productions, 2021). Originally published in Mexico as Piel de cebolla by Fondo Editorial Tierra Adentro and Instituto Queretano de la Cultura y Artes. The art is the best part of this one.