Anthologies

The Spring 1976 issue of Ploughshares, guest-edited by Tim O'Brien. Ploughshares, a journal of new writing, is guest-edited serially by prominent writers who explore different personal visions, aesthetics, and literary circles. National Book Award Winner and Pulitzer Nominee Tim O'Brien (The Things They Carried, Going After Cacciato) compiled this issue of Ploughshares subtitled, "Special Fiction Issue." In the issue's epigraph, O'Brien quotes Charles Peguy, who states, "A review only continues to have life in it so long as each issue annoys at least one fifth of its subscribers. Justice lies in seeing that tis one fifth is not always the same one." O'Brien's selections purposefully challenge, provoke, and inspire this edition's audience. This edition features works by Pulitzer Prize winner Maxine Kumin (Up Country), Richard Yates (Revolutionary Road), future Ploughshares Guest Editor Ellen Wilbur, and O'Brien himself, along with other loyal Ploughshares contributors. He was assisted in creating the issue by Associate Editors DeWitt Henry, the founder of Ploughshares, and Henry Bromell (The Slightest Distance). FICTION "A House to Let," by Mary Lavin "Going After Cacciato," by Tim O'Brien "Cellar Full of Water," by George P. Elliott "Vestiges" by Meredith Steinbach "An Old Aperitif," by Deirdre Burt "The Contagion," by Maxine Kumin "Perfection" by Ellen Wilbur "Thieves," by Richard Yates "The Things She Cannot Write About, The Reasons Why," by James Crumley NONFICTION "Bread Loaf Address," by Seymour Epstein "Mary Lavin: A Note," by Henry Bromell

A collection of non-traditional ghost stories, mostly from the past decade, by such authors as Fay Weldon, Nadine Gordimer, and Paul Bowles

Fifty remarkable short stories from a range of contemporary fiction authors including Junot Diaz, Amy Tan, Jamaica Kincaid, Jhumpa Lahiri, and more, selected from a survey of more than five hundred English professors, short story writers, and novelists. Contributors include Russell Banks, Donald Barthelme, Rick Bass, Richard Bausch, Charles Baxter, Amy Bloom, T.C. Boyle, Kevin Brockmeier, Robert Olen Butler, Sandra Cisneros, Peter Ho Davies, Janet Desaulniers, Junot Diaz, Anthony Doerr, Stuart Dybek, Deborah Eisenberg, Richard Ford, Mary Gaitskill, Dagoberto Gilb, Ron Hansen, A.M. Homes, Mary Hood, Denis Johnson, Edward P. Jones, Thom Jones, Jamaica Kincaid, Jhumpa Lahiri, David Leavitt, Kelly Link, Reginald McKnight, David Means, Susan Minot , Rick Moody, Bharati Mukherjee, Antonya Nelson, Joyce Carol Oates, Tim O’Brien, Daniel Orozco, Julie Orringer, ZZ Packer, Annie Proulx, Stacey Richter, George Saunders, Joan Silber, Leslie Marmon Silko, Susan Sontag, Amy Tan, Melanie Rae Thon, Alice Walker, and Steve Yarbrough.

The richest man in the world invites a trio of mediocre golfers to play at a secret course in Scotland. The result of their efforts will somehow affect the fate of the world. Can golf save the world? Fore? No, nine. That's how many literary grand masters each contribute a chapter and together bring you a blistering drive of a story that beats par with every page. To the inauguration of the state-of-the-art course in Scotland come three notoriously hard-luck golfers--not to mention peace-seeking world leaders, havoc-wreaking eco-terrorists, a naked golfer in quest of a hole in one, and, in the putt to end all putts, enough plastique to turn the world into a giant sand trap. Will things get rough in the rough? Will the green run red? Where, exactly, is the mysterious nineteenth hole? With this suspenseful and hilarious ensemble tour de force of sex, money, and mayhem on the links, the "good walk" have never been more fun.

Gathering forty important short stories in a portable and economical format, the second edition includes even more of the fiction instructors want to teach and more of the help student readers need.

A concise anthology of short fiction exemplifying today's rich diversity of narrative styles. This gathering of twenty-four short stories shows the richness and vitality of the form. Each engaging, accessible story represents one of the many modes of storytelling now in our literature. Here are short stories in the guise of memoir or confession; written as a letter, a fable, a report; or accomplishing what we usually expect of a novel, an essay, a character study, a poem. A uniquely contemporary collection, yet with an eye on tradition, it includes long-revered as well as more recently heralded masters. Among them are Margaret Atwood, Ann Beattie, Robert Olen Butler, Truman Capote, Raymond Carver, Junot Diaz, Louise Erdrich, Ian Frazier, Randall Kenan, Jhumpa Lahiri, Rick Moody, Lorrie Moore, Alice Munro, Tim O'Brien, ZZ Packer, Alice Walker, Eudora Welty, Joy Williams, and Richard Yates. An introduction provides historical background and elaborates on the idea that although there may be a limited number of stories to tell, there are countless ways to tell them. Illuminating notes on the author's life and work precede each story.

What happens to people's lives during times of battle and strife? From the American Revolution to the ongoing war in Iraq, the subject of this collection is how people cope with the dramatic shifts that come with war. Before Independence, a slave fights for freedom by taking up arms for the British; in World War I, a mother goes to the front lines to see her son; and in our time, a teenager in Oregon waits for e-mail from his father in the Middle East.

Collected here for the first time are key works by this century’s leading military historians, all recipients of the Pritzker Military Museum & Library Literature Award for Lifetime Achievement in Military Writing. The Pritzker Literature Award honors writers whose work adds to the public’s understanding of military history and the role played by the military in civil society. In the tradition of historians dating back to ancient times, these authors and scholars demonstrate the numerous ways to write about military history.