John Hoyer Updike was an American novelist, poet, short-story writer, art critic, and literary critic. One of only four writers to win the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction more than once, Updike published more than twenty novels, more than a dozen short-story collections, as well as poetry, art and literary criticism and children's books during his career.
James Alan McPherson was an American essayist and short-story writer. He was the first African-American writer to win the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction, and was included among the first group of artists who received a MacArthur Fellowship. At the time of his death, McPherson was a professor emeritus of fiction at the Iowa Writers' Workshop.
Judith Josephine Grossman, who took the pen-name Judith Merril around 1945, was an American and then Canadian science fiction writer, editor and political activist, and one of the first women to be widely influential in those roles.
Linwood Vrooman Carter was an American author of science fiction and fantasy, as well as an editor, poet and critic. He usually wrote as Lin Carter; known pseudonyms include H. P. Lowcraft and Grail Undwin. He is best known for his work in the 1970s as editor of the Ballantine Adult Fantasy series, which introduced readers to many overlooked classics of the fantasy genre.
The O. Henry Award is an annual American award given to short stories of exceptional merit. The award is named after the American short-story writer O. Henry.
The Best American Series is a series of anthologies that is published annually by Mariner Books, an imprint of HarperCollins. Each title within the series covers a specific genre such as short stories or mysteries. The works for each year's edition are selected from those published elsewhere during the previous year.
Ploughshares is an American literary journal established in 1971 by DeWitt Henry and Peter O'Malley in The Plough and Stars, an Irish pub in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Since 1989, Ploughshares has been based at Emerson College in Boston. Ploughshares publishes issues four times a year, two of which are guest-edited by a prominent writer who explores personal visions, aesthetics, and literary circles. Guest editors have been the recipients of Nobel and Pulitzer prizes, National Book Awards, MacArthur and Guggenheim fellowships, and numerous other honors. Ploughshares also publishes longform stories and essays, known as Ploughshares Solos, all of which are edited by the editor-in-chief, Ladette Randolph, and a literary blog, launched in 2009, which publishes critical and personal essays, interviews, and book reviews.
Rock Springs is the first collection of short stories by author Richard Ford, published in 1987.
Joseph Hillström King, better known by the pen name Joe Hill, is an American writer. His work includes the novels Heart-Shaped Box (2007), Horns (2010), NOS4A2 (2013), and The Fireman (2016); the short story collections 20th Century Ghosts (2005) and Strange Weather (2017); and the comic book series Locke & Key (2008–2013). He has won awards including Bram Stoker Awards, British Fantasy Awards, and an Eisner Award.
Other Voices, Inc. is a non-profit literary press encompassing Other Voices literary magazine and the fiction imprint OV Books.
Harvard Review is a biannual literary journal published by Houghton Library at Harvard University.
The Best American Short Stories 2006, a volume in The Best American Short Stories series, was edited by Katrina Kenison and by guest editor Ann Patchett. This edition is notable in that it was the last edition edited by Katrina Kenison, who was succeeded by Heidi Pitlor the following year. Also, Patchett chose to present the stories in reverse-alphabetical order.
American Short Fiction is a nationally circulated literary magazine founded in 1991 and based in Austin, Texas. Issued triannually, American Short Fiction publishes short fiction, novel excerpts, an occasional novella, and strives to publish work by both established and emerging contemporary authors. The magazine seeks out stories "that dive into the wreck, that stretch the reader between recognition and surprise, that conjure a particular world with delicate expertise—stories that take a different way home."
Martha Foley cofounded Story magazine in 1931 with her husband Whit Burnett. She achieved some celebrity by introducing notable authors through the magazine such as J. D. Salinger, Tennessee Williams and Richard Wright. In 1941 she became the series editor for The Best American Short Stories series.
Carol Sklenicka is an American biographer and literary scholar known for her authoritative, full-scale biographies of two important figures in late twentieth-century American literature: acclaimed short story masters Raymond Carver and Alice Adams.
West Branch is an American literary magazine based at Bucknell University in Lewisburg, Pennsylvania, published by the Stadler Center for Poetry. The magazine, which was founded in 1977, publishes poetry, fiction, creative nonfiction, and literary criticism.
Larry Dark has been the director of The Story Prize—a U.S. book award for short story collections—since its inception in 2004. He served as series editor of the O. Henry Awards for the 1997–2002 volumes. He has also compiled, edited, and introduced five other literary anthologies.
Katrina Kenison is an American author of literary memoir and nonfiction about parenting, life stages, mindfulness, and simplicity. Her first book, Mitten Strings for God: Reflections for Mothers in a Hurry, published in 2000, encourages parents of young children to restore balance and stillness to lives often spent on the run. "Inspirational and life-affirming, it offers reminders of what is of lasting value, such as grace, love, tranquility." In 2009, Kenison published The Gift of an Ordinary Day: A Mother's Memoir, an exploration of the challenges and rewards of parenting adolescents. Her memoir Magical Journey: An Apprenticeship in Contentment, published in January 2013, is a personal account of the losses and lessons of the second half of life. Kenison is also the author, with Rolf Gates, of Meditations from the Mat: Daily Reflections on the Path of Yoga. A graduate of Smith College, she lives in New Hampshire with her husband, Steven Lewers, and is the mother of two grown sons. She is a yoga instructor and a Reiki practitioner.
Mary Lerner was an American writer who had a brief career writing short stories. She published at least 14 stories in national magazines — including McCall's, Collier's, and Harper's Bazaar — between 1914 and 1919.
Shannon Ravenel, née Harriett Shannon Ravenel, is an American literary editor and co-founder of Algonquin Books of Chapel Hill. There she edited the annual anthology New Stories from the South from 1986 to 2006. She was series editor of the Houghton Mifflin annual anthology The Best American Short Stories from 1977 to 1990.
