After years of dodging her drunken mama, Jane runs away at sixteen—during the Summer of Love. Despite seventeen years of keeping secrets while searching for love in dysfunctional relationships, Jane looks good on paper: married, graduate school, coin-carrying member of AA. But her carefully constructed life is crumbling. Returning for Mama’s funeral catapults her back to the events that made her the woman she is.

     Dani, Bailey, and Kaya think they know what they want from life- success, independence, and a gorgeous man to share their beds-but when they perform an old wish-making ritual together, each of them gets a sinful surprise. In these three interrelated love stories, these women discover that two is company...and three is even better.

    Telling stories resourcefully and artfully was a key social grace, and when they recorded theseelegant narratives they consciously invented the modern fairy tale as we still know it today. For this beautiful anthology of six masterpiece wonder tales, Marina Warner gathered five writers with a special sympathy for the French stories they render here in burnished, cunning and amusing English. The stories, The White Cat (translated by John Ashbery), The Subtle Princess (GilbertAdair), Bearskin and Starlight (Terence Cave), The Counterfeit Marquise (Ranjit Bolt), and The Great Green Worm (A.S. Byatt), are as unforgettable today as they were when first published centuries ago. Wonder is the key to the stories, and each tale abounds with transformation and magic.Wonders can be benign (like the garden fruits that come when you whistle) or baneful (like the bad fairy Magotine's spells), producing dread and desire at the same time. But, fortunately, they almost always punish those who deserve it: tyrants, seducers, and other forces of malevolence. Heroes and heroines are put to mischievous tests, and their quest for love is confounded when their objects of desire change into beasts or monsters. Still, true understanding and recognition of the person beneath the spell wins in the end, for after wonder comes consolation, and after strangesetbacks comes a happy ending. In Wonder Tales, a magical world awaits all who dare to enter.

    With a foreword by Robert Shapard and an afterword by Christopher Merrill, this book brings you fresh approaches to an exacting form that demands precision, a species of brevity that is surprisingly expansive. Writers say the pieces are hard to compose, but readers say they are easy to appreciate, a pleasure to envision, a wonder to watch life spun out and painted in small places. Real and surreal, lyrical and prosaic, here are 135 stories by 89 authors, certain to make you think.

    Every game played with your child has the potential to become a lifelong memory.The Rookie is a flash fiction piece (just over 500 words) based on a childhood memory.

    From a hilarious tale about bioengineering and the stresses of climbing the corporate ladder to an evocative story of a woman who loses a sock at the the laundromat and finds she's missing a bit of her soul, these science fiction stories showcase an award-winning writer's compelling vision of the universe. Computer pioneers, cross-country skiers, and aliens figure into these literary stories that challenge the boundaries of imagination with quirky, anti-establishment characters and visionary technological extrapolation.ContentsForeword by William Gibson"Stable Strategies for Middle Management""Fellow Americans""Computer Friendly""The Sock Story""Coming to Terms""Lichen and Rock""Contact""What Are Friends For?""Ideologically Labile Fruit Crisp""Spring Conditions""Nirvana High" (with Leslie What)"Green Fire (with Andy Duncan, Pat Murphy, and Michael Swanwick)Afterword by Howard Waldrop

    It's also too smart for bullshit and too graceful to be mean about the bullshit: a marvelous debut. I love it."Juliet Escoria, author of Black Cloud, says: "Imagine bodies within bodies eating a feast, spilling over with their own secrets and hopes and dreams and fears and brutality and witchery. That is the party you will find in this book — a modern-day, literary equivalent of a Bosch painting.Mike Young, author of Sprezzatura, says: "These poems list the real shit. These poems melt the hard fat of life into tallow candles, then reach up and light themselves.Salt Is For Curing is the lush and haunting full-length debut by Sonya Vatomsky. These poems, structured as an elaborate meal, conjure up a vapor of earthly pains and magical desires; like the most enduring rituals, Vatomsky’s poems both intoxicate and ward. A new blood moon in American poetry, Salt Is For Curing is surprising, disturbing, and spookily illuminating.

    Heid E. Erdrich has selected twenty-one poets whose first books were published after the year 2000 to highlight the exciting works coming up after Joy Harjo and Sherman Alexie. Collected here are poems of great breadth―long narratives, political outcries, experimental works, and traditional lyrics―and the result is an essential anthology of some of the best poets writing now.Poets included are Tacey M. Atsitty, Trevino L. Brings Plenty, Julian Talamantez Brolaski, Laura Da’, Natalie Diaz, Jennifer Elise Foerster, Eric Gansworth, Gordon Henry, Jr., Sy Hoahwah, LeAnne Howe, Layli Long Soldier, Janet McAdams, Brandy Nalani McDougall, Margaret Noodin, dg okpik, Craig Santos Perez, Tommy Pico, Cedar Sigo, M. L. Smoker, Gwen Westerman, and Karenne Wood.

    Stories were to be about 250 words long; first prize was a check and a crate of oranges.Two to three thousand stories began to show up annually in Tallahassee, and National Public Radio regularly broadcast the winner. But, more important, the Micro form turned out to be contagious; stories of this "lack of length" now dot the literary magazines. The time seemed right, then, for this anthology, presenting a decade of contest winners and selected finalists. In addition, Stern commissioned Micros, persuading a roster of writers to accept the challenge of completing a story in one page.Jesse Lee Kercheval has a new spin on the sinking of the Titanic; Virgil Suarez sets his sights on the notorious Singapore caning; George Garrett conjures up a wondrous screen treatment pitch; and Antonya Nelson invites us into an eerie landscape. Verve and nerve and astonishing variety are here, with some wild denouements.How short can a Micro be, you wonder. Look up Amy Hempel's contribution, and you'll see.Includes:Poet's husband by M. GilesCough by Harry HumesDaydream by R. AllenWrong channel by R. FernandezHarmony by J. Williams20by20 by L. BrewerYour fears are justified by R. DeMarinisAt the point by B. McCaddonHalo by M. McFeeMockingbird by L. BerryChanging the channel by E.E. MillerWanting to fly by S. DunningEclipsed by R. ShusterNew Year by P. PainterSurvivors by K. AddonizioAnti-Cain by V. SuarezPainted devils by F. ChappellHoneycomb by N.R. SingerBaby, baby, baby by F. CamoinAn old story by J. KelmanConception by T. FlemingAll this by J. AvallonStone belly girl by J. Granger Worry by R. WallaceYou can't see dogs on the radio by L. WendlingTrue story of Mr. and Mrs. Wong by M. ChinFlu by S. DybekThe bridge by R. EdsonKennedy in the barrio by J.O. CoferGrief by R. CarlsonMount Olive by M.A. LoveHurray for Hollywood by G. GarrettThis is how I remember it by Betsy KemperNovember by U. HegiCarpathia by J.L. KerchevalChickens by E. MagarrellMayor of the sister city speaks to the chamber of commerce in Klamath Falls, Oregon, on a night in December in 1976 by M. MartoneConfirmation names by M. LippoHostess ; Housewife by A. HempelLand's end by A. NelsonLast supper in the Cabinet Mountains by D. BottomsStrongman by W. White-RingDiverging paths and all that by M. O'HaraA gentleman's C by P. PowellOf exposure by J. HolmanTea leaves by J. BurrowayWe eat our peas for the souls in Purgatory by A. McPetersWaiting by P. McNallyBut what was her name? by D. RaffelGuadalupe in the Promised Land by Sam ShepardMorning news by J. SternMolibi by L. HancockWallet by A. Woodman

    In these pages, you will find the most provocative, compelling, tragic, and triumphant moments in sports from 2007, captured by the knights of the keyboard who make sports come alive for us day after day, week after week, year after year. Here you’ll find Paul Solotaroff’s excellent and uncompromising take on the neglect that a growing number of crippled NFL players continually face from the NFL players’ union. Jeanne Marie Laskas’s “G-L-O-R-Y!” offers a rousing inside look at the pregame rituals of the Cincinnati Bengals cheerleaders. A riveting online diary by Wright Thompson reveals a bleak and merciless landscape in China, which that country’s government would rather not have the world see during preparations for the Olympics. Nack finds a place for the fascinating offbeat story as well as the sensational. Alongside Eli Saslow’s captivating article about an obscure seventeenth-century sport, similar to a giant rugby scrum, carried out in the streets of Kirkwall, Scotland, stands Franz Lidz’s “scoop of the year,” a controversial and rare look into the life of George Steinbrenner, baseball’s largest but recently most enigmatic figure. This year’s collection marks another wonderful addition to “one of the most consistently satisfying titles in the Best American series” (Booklist).Contributors include Scott Price, Rick Bragg, Gary Smith, J.R. Moehringer, and others.

    In doing so, she jeopardizes both the army scholarship that will secure her future and her relationship with her military family. But Judy’s doubts have escalated with the travesties of the war. Who is she if she stays in the army? What is she if she leaves?When the first date pulled in the Draft Lottery turns up as her birthday, she realizes that if she were a man, she’d have been Number One—off to Vietnam with an under-fire life expectancy of six seconds. The stakes become clear, propelling her toward a life-altering choice as fateful as that of any draftee.The Fourteenth of September portrays a pivotal time at the peak of the Vietnam War through the rare perspective of a young woman, tracing her path of self-discovery and a “Coming of Conscience.” Judy’s story speaks to the poignant clash of young adulthood, early feminism, and war, offering an ageless inquiry into the domestic politics of protest when the world stops making sense.

    Faced with the absence of her brother, who's serving life in San Quentin, and hardened by her own experiences in lock-up, Mel sturggles to adjust to the harsh realities of life on the outside. She quickly discovers that freeedom is relative...she has no money, no prospects, no guidance. Forced to return to her mother's apartment in Marin County and take a job houling portable toilets, Mel finds herself drinking too much and hanging out with her old gang again. Haunted by glimpses of her own harrowing girlhood and of the mysterious circumstances that put her in prison in the first place, she slowly, bravely begins to forge a potential path toward redemption and escape.

    Davis • Jennifer Egan • Carolyn Ferrell • Mary Gordon • Cristina Henríquez • Samantha Hunt •Binnie Kirshenbaum • Dika Lam • Caitlin Macy • Francine Prose • Holiday Reinhorn • Roxana Robinson • Curtis Sittenfeld • Lynne Tillman • Martha Witt Chick lit: A genre of fiction that often recycles the following plot: Girl in big city desperately searches for Mr. Right in between dieting and shopping for shoes. Girl gets dumped (sometimes repeatedly). Girl finds Prince Charming. This Is Not Chick Lit is a celebration of America’s most dynamic literary voices, as well as a much needed reminder that, for every stock protagonist with a designer handbag and three boyfriends, there is a woman writer pushing the envelope of literary fiction with imagination, humor, and depth. The original short stories in this collection touch on some of the same themes as chick lit–the search for love and identity–but they do so with extraordinary power, creativity, and range; they are also political, provocative, and, at turns, utterly surprising. Featuring marquee names as well as burgeoning talents, This Is Not Chick Lit will nourish your heart, and your mind. “This Is Not Chick Lit is important not only for its content, but for its title. I’ll know we’re getting somewhere when equally talented male writers feel they have to separate themselves from the endless stream of fiction glorifying war, hunting and sports by naming an anthology This Is Not a Guy Thing.”–Gloria Steinem“These voices, diverse and almost eerily resonant, offer us a refreshing breath of womanhood-untamed, ungroomed, and unglossed.”–ELLE

    Nettie’s lifelong nemesis is jabbing her with perfectly polished nails, while her hellfire and brimstone preacher refuses to baptize her. Amid this turmoil, a Monacan Indian medicine woman gives her a cryptic message about a coming darkness, a blood moon whose veiled danger threatens Nettie and those she loves. To prepare for the darkness, Nettie and her best friend, Win, make a treacherous journey into the mountains to build a mysterious dreamcatcher of ancient elements.

    This memorable collection of poems exhibits Maya Angelou's unique gift for capturing the triumph and pain of being black and every man and woman's struggle to be free. Filled with bittersweet intimacies and ferocious courage, these poems are gems–many-faceted, bright with wisdom, radiant with life.