Richard Russo is an American novelist, short story writer, screenwriter, and teacher. In 2002, he was awarded a Pulitzer Prize in Fiction for his novel Empire Falls. Several of his works have been adapted into television series and movies.
The Best American Short Stories is a yearly anthology that's part of The Best American Series published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. Since 1915, the BASS has anthologized more than 2,000 short stories, including works by some of the most famous writers in contemporary American literature. Along with the O. Henry Awards, Best American Short Stories is one of the two "best-known annual anthologies of short fiction."
Ben Loory is an American short fiction writer. He is the author of the collections Stories for Nighttime and Some for the Day and Tales of Falling and Flying, as well as a picture book for children, The Baseball Player and the Walrus. Loory’s stories have appeared in over one hundred journals and magazines including The New Yorker, BOMB Magazine,Fairy Tale Review, and TriQuarterly, and been heard on This American Life and Selected Shorts. He lives and teaches short story writing in Los Angeles.
The Best American Short Stories 2010, a volume in The Best American Short Stories series, was edited by Heidi Pitlor and by guest editor Richard Russo.
The Best American Short Stories 2011, a volume in the Best American Short Stories series, was edited by Heidi Pitlor and by guest editor Geraldine Brooks.
The Best American Short Stories 2012, a volume in the Best American Short Stories series, was edited by Heidi Pitlor and by guest editor Tom Perotta.
Sharon Solwitz is a fiction writer and professor based in Chicago, Illinois. She is the author of the short story collection Blood and Milk and the novels Bloody Mary and Once, in Lourdes. Tom Perotta and Heidi Pitlor selected her story "Alive" for inclusion in The Best American Short Stories 2012, and her story "Gifted" was chosen for the 2016 collection. She earned a Ph.D. from the University of Illinois at Chicago in 1991, and teaches creative writing at Purdue University.
All the Light We Cannot See is a 2014 war novel by American author Anthony Doerr. The novel is set during World War II. It revolves around the characters Marie-Laure LeBlanc, a blind French girl who takes refuge in her great-uncle's house in Saint-Malo after Paris is invaded by Nazi Germany, and Werner Pfennig, a bright German boy who is accepted into a military school because of his skills in radio technology. The book alternates between paralleling chapters depicting Marie-Laure and Werner, framed with a nonlinear structure. The novel has a lyrical writing style, with critics noting extensive sensory details. The story has ethical themes, portraying the destructive nature of war and Doerr's fascination with science and nature.
The Best American Short Stories 2013, a volume in the Best American Short Stories series, was edited by Heidi Pitlor and by guest editor Elizabeth Strout. In her introduction Strout noted that she did not chose a story "primarily based on its subject," but that, for her, "voice" was a stronger criterion:
That sound – if it is working well – has authority, probably the most important dimension of voice. We really hope the writer knows what he or she is doing. And we really hope that this sense of authority will be sustained throughout. We look for this the same way we look for authoritative competence in any other trade… I don’t think readers think about this analytically, but instead, they experience it as a feeling about the writer that grows stronger as they read…
Kathleen Alcott is an American novelist, short-story writer, and essayist from Northern California. They have taught Creative Writing and Literature at Columbia University and Bennington College.
The Best American Short Stories 2014, a volume in the Best American Short Stories series, was edited by Heidi Pitlor and by guest editor Jennifer Egan.
The Best American Short Stories 2015, a volume in the Best American Short Stories series, was edited by Heidi Pitlor and by guest editor T. C. Boyle.
The Best American Short Stories 2016, a volume in the Best American Short Stories series, was edited by Heidi Pitlor and by guest editor Junot Díaz.
The Best American Short Stories 2018, a volume in the Best American Short Stories series, was edited by Heidi Pitlor and by guest editor Roxane Gay.
The Best American Short Stories 2020 is a volume in the annual Best American Short Stories anthology. It was edited by the series editor, Heidi Pitlor, and guest editor Curtis Sittenfeld.
The Best American Short Stories 2021 is a volume in the annual Best American Short Stories anthology. It was edited by the series editor, Heidi Pitlor, and guest editor and two-time National Book Award winner, Jesmyn Ward.
The Best American Short Stories 2022 is a volume in the annual Best American Short Stories anthology. It was edited by series editor Heidi Pitlor and guest editor and Pulitzer Prize winner Andrew Sean Greer. The collection of 20 short stories selected from leading magazines in the U.S. was published in November 2022 with a print run of 75,000. It was also issued as an audiobook spoken by five voice actors.
The Best American Short Stories 2023 is a volume in the annual Best American Short Stories anthology. It was edited by the series editor, Heidi Pitlor, and guest editor and National Book Award finalist, Min Jin Lee.
The Best American Short Stories 2024 is a volume in the annual Best American Short Stories anthology. It was edited by the series editor, Heidi Pitlor, and guest editor Lauren Groff.
Yoon Choi is an American writer. She is the author of Skinship, a 2021 short story collection published by Knopf that won several accolades and made several end-of-year lists, and was a Stegner Fellow at Stanford University. Themes of her work include Korean and Korean American identity, language and translation, and family.
