Introduction / Andre Dubus III

Ann Patchett. Sonny's blues / James Baldwin ; The long-distance runner / Grace Paley

Mary Gordon. I stand here ironing / Tillie Olsen ; Pale horse, pale rider / Katherine Anne Porter

Madison Smartt Bell. King of the mountain / George Garrett ; Sredni Vashtar / Saki

Meg Wolitzer. Clay / James Joyce ; Yours / Mary Robison

Dani Shapiro. The circular ruins / Jorge Luis Borges ; Getting closer / Steven Millhauser

ZZ Packer. Paper lantern / Stuart Dybek ; A solo song: for Doc / James Alan McPherson

Ann Beattie. Bliss / Katherine Mansfield ; The prince / Craig Nova

T. C. Boyle. The brother / Robert Coover ; Sorrows of the flesh / Isabel Huggan

Anthony Doerr. The garden of Forking Paths / Jorge Luis Borges ; Continuity of parks / Julio Cortázar

Gish Jen. Barn burning / William Faulkner ; Bartleby, the scrivener / Herman Melville

Stewart O'Nan. Winter dreams / F. Scott Fitzgerald ; Boys / Rick Moody

Tobias Wolff. Wakefield / Nathaniel Hawthorne ; Where are you going, where have you been? / Joyce Carol Oates

Jess Walter. The school / Donald Barthelme ; Bullet in the brain / Tobias Wolff

Kirstin Valdez Quade. Love / William Maxwell ; Dance of the happy shades / Alice Munro

Mona Simpson. The lady with the dog / Anton Chekhov ; Good people / David Foster Wallace

Richard Russo. The lottery / Shirley Jackson ; Builders / Richard Yates

Ron Rash. Where will you go when your skin cannot contain you / William Gay ; A worn path / Eudora Welty

Anna Quindlen. The gift of the Magi / O. Henry ; Wants / Grace Paley

Jayne Anne Phillips. A good man is hard to find / Flannery O'Connor ; In dreams begin responsibilities / Delmore Schwartz

Edith Pearlman. A love match / Sylvia Townsend Warner ; Roman fever / Edith Wharton

Peter Orner. Guests of the nation / Frank O'Connor ; Welcome / John Edgar Wideman

Joyce Carol Oates. Battle royal / Ralph Ellison ; A & P / John Updike

Bich Minh Nguyen. Cathedral / Raymond Carver ; In the American society / Gish Jen

Antonya Nelson. Heart of darkness / Joseph Conrad ; The girl who left her sock on the floor / Deborah Eisenberg

Rick Moody. The company of wolves / Angela Carter ; The use of force / William Carlos Williams

Sue Miller. Spanish in the morning / Edward P. Jones ; The things they carried / Tim O'Brien

Colum McCann. A ball of malt and Madame Butterfly / Benedict Kiely ; The love object / Edna O'Brien

Lois Lowry. A small, good thing / Raymond Carver ; The management of grief / Bharati Mukherjee

Dennis Lehane. Why don't you dance / Raymond Carver ; The second tree from the corner / E.B. White

Phil Klay. The grand inquisitor / Fyodor Dostoyevsky ; The harvest / Amy Hempel

Charles Johnson. An occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge / Ambrose Bierce ; Trumpeter / John Gardner

Pam Houston. Sara Cole: a type of love story / Russell Banks ; A note on the type / Ron Carlson

Ann Hood. Girl / Jamaica Kincaid ; Home / Jayne Anne Phillips

Paul Harding. The swimmer / John Cheever ; The jewels of the Cabots / John Cheever

Ron Hansen. To build a fire / Jack London ; Master and man / Leo Tolstoy

Jane Hamilton. Goodbye my brother / John Cheever ; White angel / Michael Cunningham

Jennifer Haigh. The ice wagon going down the street / Mavis Gallant ; Family furnishings / Alice Munro

Lauren Groff. The overcoat / Nikolai Gogol ; The shawl / Cynthia Ozick

Robert Boswell. Madagascar / Steven Schwartz ; The death of Ivan Ilych / Leo Tolstoy

Russell Banks. The artificial nigger / Flannery O'Connor ; No place for you my love / Eudora Welty

Julia Glass. A father's story / Andre Dubus ; Young Goodman Brown / Nathaniel Hawthorne

Dagoberto Gilb. La Noche Buena / Tomas Rivera ; Paso del norte / Juan Rulfo

Stuart Dybek. The grasshopper and bell cricket / Yasunari Kawabata ; Birds / John O'Brien

Emma Donoghue. An attack of hunger / Maeve Brennan ; The yellow wallpaper / Charlotte Perkins Gilman

Junot Díaz. Bloodchild / Octavia Butler ; Night women / Edwidge Danticat

Michael Cunningham. Work / Denis Johnson ; The dead / James Joyce

Lan Samantha Chang. French lesson I: le meurtre / Lydia Davis ; The cask of Amontillado / Edgar Allan Poe

Ron Carlson. Babylon revisited / F. Scott Fitzgerald ; The tell-tale heart / Edgar Allan Poe

Charles Baxter. The corn planting / Sherwood Anderson ; A conversation with my father / Grace Paley

Richard Bausch. Hills like white elephants / Ernest Hemingway ; The real thing / Henry James

Writing prompts from the contributors.