Anthology

This second volume of The &Now Awards recognizes the most provocative, hardest-hitting, deadly serious, patently absurd, cutting-edge, avant-everything-and-nothing work from the years 2009-11. The &NOW Awards features writing as a contemporary art form: writing as it is practiced today by authors who consciously treat their work as an art, and as a practice explicitly aware of its own literary and extra-literary history-- as much about its form and materials, language, as it about its subject matter. The &NOW conference, moving from the University of Notre Dame (2004), Lake Forest College (2006), Chapman University (2008), the University at Buffalo (2009), the University of California, San Diego (2011), and Paris (Sorbonne and Diderot, 2012)--sets the stage for this aesthetic, while The &Now Awards features work from the wider world of innovative publishing and serves as an ideal survey of the contemporary scene.

Contributors include: Harold Abramowitz (.UNFO), Shane Allison, Dimitri Anastasopoulos, Rachel Gontijo Araujo, Garrett Ashley, Joe Atkins, Jesse Ball, Lutz Bassmann, Jose Perez Beduya, Matt Bell, Kate Bernheimer, Arno Bertina, Andrew Borgstrom, Daniel Borzutzky, Amina Memory Cain, J. R. Carpenter, Julie Carr, Sam Cha, Alexandra Chasin, Don Mee Choi, Jack Collom, Josh Corey, Shome Dasgupta, Katie Degentesh, Andy Devine, LaTasha Nevada Diggs, Ben Doller, Sandra Doller, Manuela Draeger, Marcella Durand, Kate Durbin, Craig Dworkin, Brian Evenson, Elisa Gabbert, Roxane Gay, Elizabeth Gentry, Johannes Göransson, Amelia Gray, Amira Hanafi, Duriel E. Harris (Black Took Collective), Gretchen E. Henderson, Jibade-Khalil Huffman, Laird Hunt, Kim Hyesoon, Parneshia Jones, Bhanu Kapil, Jennifer Karmin, Janice Lee, Daniel Levin Becker, Michael Leong, A. J. Patrick Liszkiewicz, John Madera, Annam Manthiram, Jennifer Martenson, Dawn Lundy Martin (Black Took Collective), Joyelle McSweeney, Christina Milletti, Monica Mody, K. Silem Mohammad, Nick Montfort, Sawako Nakaysu, Urayoán Noel, Alissa Nutting, Lance Phillips, Evelyn Reilly, Dan Richert (.UNFO), Kathleen Rooney, Marc Saaporta, David Shields, Eleni Sikelianos, Amber Sparks, Anna Joy Springer, Ken Taylor, Anne-Laure Tissut, Sarah Tourjee, J. A. Tyler, Azareen Van der Vliet Oloomi, Nico Vassilakis, Antione Volodine, Ronaldo V. Wilson (Black Took Collective), Raúl Zurita

This celebration of America's literary legacy, a companion volume to Dover's 100 Great Short Stories, offers students and other readers a superb selection of short fiction by master storytellers. Contributors include Mark Twain, F. Scott Fitzgerald, O. Henry, Willa Cather, Washington Irving, Henry James, Edgar Allan Poe, Louisa May Alcott, and many others.
The stories are arranged alphabetically by author. Selections from American literature of the nineteenth century include Herman Melville's "The Fiddler," Bret Harte's "The Outcasts of Poker Flat," "Adventure of the German Student" by Washington Irving, Ambrose Bierce's "The Eyes of the Panther," "The Open Boat" by Stephen Crane, and Nathaniel Hawthorne's "The Ambitious Guest." More recent stories include Djuna Barnes' "A Night Among the Horses," Ernest Hemingway's "Up in Michigan," Zora Neale Hurston's "Sweat," "To Build a Fire" by Jack London, Theodore Dreiser's "The Lost Phoebe," and "Jesus Christ in Texas" by W. E. B. Du Bois.

In June 2010, the editors of The New Yorker announced to widespread media coverage their selection of 20 Under 40--the young fiction writers who are, or will be, central to their generation. The magazine published twenty stories by this stellar group of writers over the course of the summer. They are now collected for the first time in one volume.

The range of voices is extraordinary. There is the lyrical realism of Nell Freudenberger, Philipp Meyer, C. E. Morgan, and Salvatore Scibona; the satirical comedy of Joshua Ferris and Gary Shteyngart; and the genre-bending tales of Jonathan Safran Foer, Nicole Krauss, and Téa Obreht. David Bezmozgis and Dinaw Mengestu offer clear eyed portraits of immigration and identity; Sarah Shun-lien Bynum, ZZ Packer, and Wells Tower offer voice-driven, idiosyncratic narratives. Then there are the haunting sociopolitical stories of Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, Daniel Alarcón, and Yiyun Li, and the metaphysical fantasies of Chris Adrian, Rivka Galchen, and Karen Russell.

Each of these writers reminds us why we read. And each is aiming for greatness: fighting to get and to hold our attention in a culture that is flooded with words, sounds, and pictures; fighting to surprise, to entertain, to teach, and to move not only us but generations of readers to come. A landmark collection, 20 Under 40 stands as a testament to the vitality of fiction today.

"A vibrant journey through the annals of classic American short stories"

"21 Essential American Short Stories" is a collection of beloved stories that have comprised an important part of the fabric of our culture, from the earliest days of our nation to the twentieth century. Some of the stories, such as Washington Irving's "Rip Van Winkle," O. Henry's "The Gift of the Magi," William Faulkner's "A Rose for Emily," Charlotte Perkins Gilman's "The Yellow Wallpaper," and James Thurber's "The Secret Life of Walter Mitty," have been long regarded as literary classics, while others, such as Frank Stockton's "The Lady or the Tiger?" and Ellis Parker Butler's "Pigs Is Pigs," are lesser known but well worth discovering.

The carefully selected stories, each preceded by an illuminating headnote, powerfully illustrate the varied richness of our national literature and history. This beautifully packaged volume, containing the unforgettable classic short stories that evoke our shared American tradition and national identity, makes the perfect gift for the short story aficionado and novice alike.

"Those who are creating the modern composition authentically are naturally only of importance when they are dead because by that time the modern composition having become past is classified and the description of it is classical." --Gertrude Stein "One hundred years from now everyone in this anthology will be dead. According to Stein that means Alt Lit will finally be considered 'classic.'" --Christopher Higgs Featuring work by Sam Pink (1.), Chelsea Martin (2.), Megan Boyle (3.), Beach Sloth (4.), Diana Salier (5.), Guillaume Morissette (6.), Jordan Castro (7.), Gabby Bess (8.), Alexander J Allison (9.), Janey Smith (10.), Michael Heald (11.), Juliet Escoria (12.), Jereme Dean (13.), Noah Cicero (14.), Mike Bushnell (15.), Tara Wray (16.), Spencer Madsen (17.), Laura Marie Marciano (18.), Jackson Nieuwland (19.), Carolyn DeCarlo (20.), Heiko Julien (21.), Stephen Tully Dierks (22.), Lucy Tiven (23.), Timothy Willis Sanders (24.), Ana Carrete (25.), Chris Dankland (26.), Oscar Schwartz (27.), Steve Roggenbuck (28.), Luna Miguel (29.), Crispin Best (30.), Lucy K Shaw (31.), Andrew Duncan Worthington (32.), Frank Hinton (33.), Sarah Jean Alexander (34.), Willis Plummer (35.), Keegan Crawford (36.), Richard Chiem (37.), Tao Lin (38.), Mira Gonzalez (39.), and Scott McClanahan (40.) Also included--"Poetry and the Image Macro" by Michael Hessel-Miel and an Afterword by Christopher Higgs.

The 826 Quarterly contains fiction, non-fiction, and poetry written by authors ages 6-18. The pieces are selected from all the 826 Valencia programs (drop-in tutoring, workshops, in-schools, projects, field trips) and at-large submissions. Pieces are chosen in a traditional literary journal style by an editorial board comprised of students and volunteer tutors.

This issue features poetry about subjects ranging from a pet crow to confused holidays, investigative journalism covering UFO conventions, the dark side of Justin Bieber, and the pros and cons of a spy career, short fiction about zombies turned flying jellyfish and a carrot and horse romance, in addition to many other stories, poems, and non-fiction works.

Like all writing coming out of 826 Valencia, this is by kids for kids, in a language that doesn't talk up or down to the readers, but straight across. Some of the pieces are straightforward, some unusually experimental. The writing is advanced and the themes explore issues that kids are actually interested in and that adults are sure to enjoy as well.

The 826 Quarterly draws from the student writing workshops and tutoring at 826 Valencia, a San Francisco educational nonprofit cofounded by author Dave Eggers and educator Ninive Calegari. Like any literary journal, this one sets its standards high, choosing only the best submissions. This issue's themes offer a peek at what tomorrow's acclaimed authors will be writing about: humor, mystery, boredom, family, blockbuster movies, madness, enchiladas, graffiti, and death. These poems, short stories, and nonfiction pieces delve into such disparate subjects as living in Africa and being a Cajun daughter. Elementary school students describe an R-rated dinner party and pen poems about hats, trees, and sounds; middle-schoolers meditate on insomnia and the theft of a sparkly Hello Kitty pen. Taken together, the works in 826 Quarterly form a striking composite portrait of young people's issues, interests, and concerns.