Part One: STORIES Chinua Achebe , Civil Peace Sherman Alexie , The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven Isabel Allende , An Act of Vengeance Sherwood 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 , Snow * Alison Bechdel , From Fun Home: Old Father, Old Artificer [graphic story] * Aimee Bender , The Rememberer Ambrose Bierce , An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge Jorge Luis Borges , The Circular Ruins * Ray Bradbury , August 2026: There Will Come Soft Rains 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 * Lan Samantha Chang , Water Names 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 Stephen Crane , The Open Boat Junot Díaz , How to Date a Browngirl, Blackgirl, Whitegirl, or Halfie Ralph Ellison , Battle Royal Louise Erdrich , The Red Convertible William Faulkner , A Rose for Emily William Faulkner , That Evening Sun Gabriel García Márquez , A Very Old Man with Enormous Wings Charlotte Perkins Gilman , The Yellow Wallpaper * Nadine Gordimer , Homage Nathaniel Hawthorne , Young Goodman Brown Ernest Hemingway , Hills Like White Elephants * Amy Hempel , Church Cancels Cow * A. M. Homes , Things You Should Know Zora Neale Hurston , Sweat Shirley Jackson , The Lottery Gish Jen , Who''s Irish? Sarah Orne Jewett , A White Heron * Edward P. Jones , Bad Neighbors James Joyce , Araby James Joyce , The Dead Franz Kafka , A Hunger Artist Franz Kafka , The Metamorphosis Jamaica Kincaid , Girl * Jhumpa Lahiri , Interpreter of Maladies D. H. Lawrence , The Rocking-Horse Winner * Katherine Mansfield , Miss Brill Bobbie Ann Mason , Shiloh Guy de Maupassant , The Necklace Herman Melville , Bartleby, the Scrivener * Daniyal Mueenuddin , Nawabdin Electrician Bharati Mukherjee , The Management of Grief * Alice Munro , Dance of the Happy Shades Joyce 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 * Cynthia Ozick , The Shawl * 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 , The Jilting of Granny Weatherall * Annie Proulx , Job History * Joe Sacco , From Palestine: Refugeeland [graphic story] * Marjane Satrapi , From Persepolis: The Veil [graphic story] Leslie Marmon Silko , Yellow Woman * Helen Simpson , Homework * Art Spiegelman , Prisoner on the Hell Planet: A Case History [graphic story] Amy Tan , Two Kinds Leo Tolstoy , The Death of Ivan Ilych John Updike , A & P * Helena Maria Viramontes , The Moths * Kurt Vonnegut, Jr. , Harrison Bergeron Alice Walker , Everyday Use * David Foster Wallace , Good People Eudora Welty , A Worn Path Tobias Wolff , Say Yes 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" Sherman Alexie , Superman and Me Sherwood Anderson , Form, Not Plot, in the Short Story Margaret Atwood , Reading Blind James Baldwin , Autobiographical Notes * Russell Banks , Writing "Poes" * Jorge Luis Borges , Borges and I 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 Maupassant Stephen Crane , The Sinking of the Commodore R. Crumb and David Zane Mairowitz , A Hunger Artist [graphic story] 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 Shirley Jackson , The Morning of June 28, 1948, and "The Lottery" Jamaica Kincaid , On "Girl" * Anne Lamott , Finding Your Voice Bobbie Ann Mason , On Tim O''Brien''s "The Things They Carried" Guy de Maupassant , The Writer''s Goal Herman Melville , Blackness in Hawthorne''s "Young Goodman Brown" Alice Munro , How I Write Short Stories Tim O''Brien , Alpha Company Joyce Carol Oates , From "Stories that Define Me: T he Making of a Writer" Joyce Carol Oates , Smooth Talk: Short Story into Film 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 I ndian Perspective 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 * David Foster Wallace , Some Remarks on Kafka''s Funniness from Which Probably Not Enough Has Been Removed Eudora Welty , Is Phoenix Jackson''s Grandson Really Dead? Richard Wright , Reading Fiction Part Three: CASEBOOKS CASEBOOK 1: RAYMOND CARVER Raymond Carver , On Writing Raymond Carver , Creative Writing 101 * Raymond Carver , The Bath Tom Jenks , The Origin of "Cathedral" Arthur M. Saltzman , A Reading of "What We Talk About When We Talk About Love" A.O. Scott , Looking for Raymond Carver * CASEBOOK 2: JHUMPA LAHIRI''S "INTERPRETER OF MALADIES" * Jhumpa Lahiri , My Two Lives * Sean Flynn , Jhumpa Lahiri * Simon Lewis , Jhumpa Lahiri''s Interpreter of Maladies CASEBOOK 3: FLANNERY O''CONNOR Flannery O''Connor , From Letters 1954-1955 Flannery O''Connor , Writing Short Stories Flannery O''Connor , A Reasonable Use of the Unreasonable Wayne C. Booth , A Rhetorical Reading of O''Connor''s "Everything That Rises Must Converge" Dorothy Tuck McFarland , On "Good Country People" CASEBOOK 4: GRAPHIC STORYTELLING * Alison Bechdel , What Little Old Ladies Feel * Charles Hatfield , From Alternative Comics: Toward the Habit of Question.