* indicates new selection CONTENTSPreface Introduction: The Story and Its Writer Part One: Stories Sherman Alexie, The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven *Isabelle Allende, An Act of VengeanceSherwood Anderson, Hands Margaret Atwood, Happy Endings James Baldwin, Sonny''s Blues Toni Cade Bambara, The Lesson Russell Banks, Black Man and White Woman in Dark Green Rowboat *Ann Beattie , JanusAmbrose Bierce, An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge *Jorge Luis Borges, The SouthRay Bradbury, August 2026: There Will Come Soft Rains * Alejo Carpentier, Journey to The Seed Raymond Carver, Cathedral Raymond Carver, A Small, Good Thing Raymond Carver, What We Talk About When We Talk About Love Willa Cather, Paul''s Case John Cheever, The Swimmer Anton Chekhov, The Darling Kate Chopin, Désirée''s Baby Kate Chopin, The Story of an Hour Sandra Cisneros, Barbie-Q Joseph Conrad, Heart of Darkness *Julio Cortázar, Axolotl Stephen Crane, The Open Boat *Lydia Davis, Blind Date Junot Díaz, How to Date a Browngirl, Blackgirl, Whitegirl, or Halfie Ralph Ellison, Battle Royal *Nathan Englander, What We Talk About When We Talk About Anne FrankLouise Erdrich, The Red Convertible William Faulkner, A Rose for Emily William Faulkner, That Evening Sun *F. Scott Fitzgerald, Winter Dreams*Carlos Fuentes, Pain *Mary Gaitskill, The Other Place Gabriel García Márquez, A Very Old Man with Enormous Wings*William Gass, A Fugue *Dagoberto Gilb, Love in L.A.Charlotte Perkins Gilman, The Yellow Wallpaper Nathaniel Hawthorne, Young Goodman Brown Ernest Hemingway, Hills Like White Elephants Zora Neale Hurston, The Gilded Six-Bits Shirley Jackson, The Lottery Sarah Orne Jewett, A White Heron *Denis Johnson, WorkJames Joyce, Araby James Joyce, The Dead Franz Kafka, A Hunger Artist Franz Kafka, The Metamorphosis Jamaica Kincaid, Girl *Nora Krug, Kamikaze [graphic story] Jhumpa Lahiri, Interpreter of MaladiesD.H. Lawrence, The Rocking Horse Winner Ursula K. Le Guin, The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas *Clarice Lispector, The Smallest Woman in the WorldKatherine Mansfield, Miss Brill Bobbie Ann Mason, Shiloh Guy de Maupassant, The Necklace Herman Melville, Bartleby, the Scrivener *Alice Munro, Age of FaithJoyce Carol Oates, Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?Tim O''Brien, The Things They Carried Flannery O''Connor, Everything That Rises Must Converge Flannery O''Connor, Good Country People Flannery O''Connor, A Good Man Is Hard to Find Tillie Olsen, I Stand Here Ironing *Daniel Orozco, Orientation *Julie Otsuka, The Children ZZ Packer, Brownies Grace Paley, A Conversation with My Father Edgar Allan Poe, The Cask of Amontillado Edgar Allan Poe, The Tell-Tale Heart *Katherine Anne Porter, Maria Concepción Marjane Satrapi, From Persepolis: The Veil [graphic story] *Saïd Sayrafiezadeh, A Brief Encounter with The Enemy Leslie Marmon Silko, Yellow Woman Art Spiegelman, Prisoner on the Hell Planet: A Case History [graphic story] Amy Tan, Two Kinds John Updike, A&P Kurt Vonnegut, Jr., Harrison Bergeron Alice Walker, Everyday Use *David Foster Wallace, Everything Is Green *Tobias Wolff, Bullet in the Brain Richard Wright, The Man Who Was Almost a Man Part Two: Commentaries Chinua Achebe, An Image of Africa: Racism in Conrad''s "Heart of Darkness" Sherwood Anderson, Form, Not Plot, in the Short Story Margaret Atwood, Reading Blind James Baldwin, Autobiographical Notes Ann Charters, Translating Kafka John Cheever, Why I Write Short Stories Anton Chekhov, Technique in Writing the Short Story Kate Chopin, How I Stumbled upon MaupassantStephen Crane, The Sinking of the Commodore Ralph Ellison, The Influence of Folklore on "Battle Royal" William Faulkner, The Meaning of "A Rose for Emily" Sandra M.

Gilbert and Susan Gubar, A Feminist Reading of Gilman''s "The Yellow Wallpaper" Charlotte Perkins Gilman, Why I Wrote "The Yellow Wallpaper" Charlotte Perkins Gilman, Undergoing the Cure for Nervous Prostration Zora Neale Hurston, How It Feels to Be Colored Me *Zora Neale Hurston, What White Publishers Won''t Print Shirley Jackson, The Morning of June 28, 1948 and "The Lottery" Jamaica Kincaid, On "Girl" Simon Lewis, Lahiri''s "Interpreter of Maladies" Guy de Maupassant, The Writer''s Goal Herman Melville, Blackness in Hawthorne''s "Young Goodman Brown"Alice Munro, How I Write Short Stories Joyce Carol Oates, Stories That Define Me: The Making of a Writer Joyce Carol Oates, Smooth Talk: Short Story into Film Tim O''Brien, Alpha Company Grace Paley, A Conversation with Ann Charters Edgar Allan Poe, The Importance of the Single Effect in a Prose Tale Leslie Marmon Silko, Language and Literature from a Pueblo Indian Perspective *Matt Steinglass, Reading Tim O''Brien In Hanoi Amy Tan, In the Canon, for All the Wrong Reasons Leo Tolstoy, Chekhov''s Intent in "The Darling" Alice Walker, Zora Neale Hurston: A Cautionary Tale and a Partisan View Part Three: Casebooks CASEBOOK ONE: Raymond Carver Raymond Carver, On Writing Raymond Carver, Creative Writing 101 Raymond Carver, The Bath Tom Jenks, The Origins of "Cathedral" Arthur M. Saltzman, A Reading of "What We Talk About When We Talk About Love" A.O. Scott, Looking for Raymond CarverCASEBOOK TWO: Flannery O''Connor Flannery O''Connor, From Letters, 1954-55 Flannery O''Connor, Writing Short Stories Flannery O''Connor, A Reasonable Use of the Unreasonable Joyce Carol Oates, The Parables of Flannery O''Connor Wayne C. Booth, A Rhetorical Reading of O''Connor''s "Everything That Rises Must Converge"Dorothy Tuck McFarland, On "Good Country People" *CASEBOOK THREE: Magical Realism Jorge Luis Borges, Borges and I *Alejo Carpentier, On the Marvelous Real in America *Alejo Carpentier, The Baroque and the Marvelous Real *Luis Leal, Magical Realism in Spanish American Literature *William Gass, The First Seven Pages of the Boom *Ursula K. Le Guin, The Kind of Fiction Most Characteristic of Our Times *Mario Vargas Llosa, The Prose Style of Jorge Luis Borges and Gabriel García Márquez Part Four: Appendices Reading Short Stories [includes Grace Paley, Samuel ] The Elements of Fiction A Brief History of the Short Story Writing About Short Stories Literary Theory and Critical Perspectives Glossary of Literary Terms Chronological Listing of Authors and Stories *Thematic Index Index of Authors and Titles.