It’s here: Issue 5.2, spring/summer 2017

We’re proud to announce that issue 5.2 of The Examined Life Journal has arrived at our offices and it’s on its way to you.

Creating this journal is always a labor of love and this issue has been no exception. We combed through hundreds of submissions to select the best pieces, an effort that becomes more and more difficult with each issue. The result is an issue that explores the human condition across a wide gamut of experience.

• A wise daughter shows a young, cynical medical team that an iPad is better than antibiotics for treating her father’s drug-resistant pneumonia.
• An elderly man who at one time was said to have great potential shares the sad irony of contemplating a surge of transcranial electrical potential as a last-ditch treatment for depression.
• A 19th Century Alabama farmer learns what his fledgling phrenology business is really selling.
• A receptionist in a veterinary clinic speculates on what appears to be a testy relationship between a woman and her dead husband’s beloved pet chicken.

These stories and more–thirty-one in all–represent the best writing from among the hundreds of submissions we received for this issue.

Thank you to all who submitted and to all the readers and editors who gave so much time and effort to see this through.

As a special aside, we’d like to take a moment to thank our founding poetry editor, Hilary Moser, for all the incredible work she’s done for us over the past 6-plus years. She has helped us find our poetic voice and will be missed as she leaves the journal to explore other endeavors.

In that same spirit, we’d like to welcome our new poetry editor, Serena Fox, who has graciously agreed to lead The Examined Life Journal into our poetic future. Serena has published widely, including her collection of poetry, Night Shift. We’re excited to have her with us.