The O. Henry Prize Stories

"A radiant reflection of contemporary fiction at its best, The O. Henry Prize Stories 2006 features stories from locales as diverse as Russia, Zimbabwe, and the rural American South. Series editor Laura Furman considered thousands of stories in hundreds of literary magazines before selecting the winners, which are accompanied here by short essays from each of the three eminent jurors on his or her favorite story, as well as observations from all twenty prize winners on what inspired them. Ranging in tone from arch humor to self-deluding obsessiveness to fairy-tale ingenuousness, these stories are a treasury of potential classics." — from the publisher.

A new edition of the annual collection of short stories judged to be the best in America and Canada for 2005 presents an outstanding selection of short fiction, along with concise essays by the three judges on their favorite story, and commentary from the twenty prize winners. Original. 30,000 first printing.

Laura Furman's work has appeared in The New Yorker, Vanity Fair, Ploughshares, The Yale Review, and other magazines. She is the founding editor of the highly regarded American Short Fiction (three-time finalist for the American Magazine Award). A professor of English at the University of Texas at Austin, she teaches in the graduate James A. Michener Center for writers. She lives in Austin.

Introduction •

Laura Furman, Series Editor

Old Boys, Old Girls •

Edward P. Jones, The New Yorker

You Go When You Can No Longer Stay •

Jackie Kay, Granta

Mule Killers •

Lydia Peelle, Epoch

The Broad Estates of Death •

Paula Fox, Harper’s Magazine

The Pelvis Series •

Neela Vaswani, Epoch

Conceived •

David Lawrence Morse, One Story

The Dressmaker’s Child •

William Trevor, The New Yorker

Disquisition on Tears •

Stephanie Reents, Epoch

Sault Ste. Marie •

David Means, Harper’s Magazine

Unction •

Karen Brown, The Georgia Review

’80s Lilies •

Terese Svoboda, Indiana Review

Passion •

Alice Munro, The New Yorker

The Center of the World •

George Makana Clark, The Georgia Review

Wolves •

Susan Fromberg Schaeffer, Prairie Schooner

Girls I Know •

Douglas Trevor, Epoch

The Plague of Doves •

Louise Erdrich, The New Yorker

Famine •

Xu Xi, Ploughshares

Puffed Rice and Meatballs •

Lara Vapnyar, Zoetrope: All-Story

Letters in the Snow—for kind strangers and unborn children—for the ones lost and most beloved •

Melanie Rae Thon, One Story

Window •

Deborah Eisenberg, Tin House

Reading The O. Henry Prize Stories 2006 •

The Jurors on Their Favorites

Kevin Brockmeier on “Old Boys, Old Girls” by Edward P. Jones

Francine Prose on “Window” by Deborah Eisenberg

Colm Tóibín on “Passion” by Alice Munro

Writing The O. Henry Prize Stories 2006 •

The Authors on Their Work

Recommended Stories •

Publications Submitted •

Permissions •