New Stories from the South is an annual compilation of short stories

Short story

A short story is a work of fiction that is usually written in prose, often in narrative format. This format tends to be more pointed than longer works of fiction, such as novellas and novels. Short story definitions based on length differ somewhat, even among professional writers, in part because...

 published by Algonquin Books of Chapel Hill and billed as the year's best stories written by Southern writers

Southern literature

Southern literature is defined as American literature about the Southern United States or by writers from this region...

 or about the Southern United States

Southern United States

The Southern United States—commonly referred to as the American South, Dixie, or simply the South—constitutes a large distinctive area in the southeastern and south-central United States...

. The stories are collected from more than 100 literary magazines, including The Atlantic, Harper's Magazine

Harper's Magazine

Harper's Magazine is a monthly magazine of literature, politics, culture, finance, and the arts, with a generally left-wing perspective. It is the second-oldest continuously published monthly magazine in the U.S. . The current editor is Ellen Rosenbush, who replaced Roger Hodge in January 2010...

, The New Yorker

The New Yorker

The New Yorker is an American magazine of reportage, commentary, criticism, essays, fiction, satire, cartoons and poetry published by Condé Nast...

, the Oxford American

Oxford American

The Oxford American is an American quarterly literary magazine "dedicated to featuring the very best in Southern writing while documenting the complexity and vitality of the American South."-First publication:...

, The Paris Review, Ploughshares

Ploughshares

Ploughshares is an American literary magazine founded 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 the heart of Boston...

, and The Southern Review. Shannon Ravenel, then the editor of the annual Best American Short Stories anthology, launched the New Stories from the South series in 1986 and compiled and edited every volume until 2006. To mark the third decade of the series, Algonquin invited author and John Simon Guggenheim Fellow

Guggenheim Fellowship

Guggenheim Fellowships are American grants that have been awarded annually since 1925 by the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation to those "who have demonstrated exceptional capacity for productive scholarship or exceptional creative ability in the arts." Each year, the foundation makes...

 Allan Gurganus

Allan Gurganus

Allan Gurganus is an American novelist, short story writer, and essayist whose work is often influenced by and set in his native North Carolina. His writing has been compared to the work of William Faulkner and Eudora Welty, who also were identified with the American South.-Biography: Gurganus was...

 to be guest editor.http://www.algonquin.com/products/9781565125315/

New Stories from the South has collected the work of many prominent modern American writers, including Steve Almond

Steve Almond

Steve Almond is an American short story writer and essayist. He is the author of eight books.-Life:He was raised in Palo Alto, California, and graduated from Henry M. Gunn High School. He received his undergraduate degree from Wesleyan University. He spent seven years as a newspaper reporter,...

, Russell Banks

Russell Banks

Russell Banks is an American writer of fiction and poetry.- Biography :Russell Banks was born in Newton, Massachusetts on March 28, 1940. He attended the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. He lives in upstate New York, and has been named a New York State Author. He is also...

, John Barth

John Barth

John Simmons Barth is an American novelist and short-story writer, known for the postmodernist and metafictive quality of his work.-Life:...

, Madison Smartt Bell

Madison Smartt Bell

Madison Smartt Bell is an American novelist. He was raised Nashville, and lived in New York, and London before settling in Baltimore, Maryland....

, Wendell Berry

Wendell Berry

Wendell Berry is an American man of letters, academic, cultural and economic critic, and farmer. He is a prolific author of novels, short stories, poems, and essays...

, Roy Blount Jr., Larry Brown

Larry Brown (author)

Larry Brown was an American novelist, non-fiction and short story writer. He was a winner of numerous awards including the Mississippi Institute of Arts and Letters award for fiction, the Lila Wallace-Readers Digest Award, and Mississippi's Governor's Award For Excellence in the Arts...

, James Lee Burke

James Lee Burke

James Lee Burke is an American author of mysteries, best known for his Dave Robicheaux series. He has won an Edgar Award for Black Cherry Blues and Cimarron Rose . The Robicheaux character has been portrayed twice on screen, first by Alec Baldwin and then Tommy Lee Jones...

, Robert Olen Butler

Robert Olen Butler

Robert Olen Butler is an American fiction writer. His short-story collection A Good Scent from a Strange Mountain was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for fiction in 1993.-Early life:...

, Andre Dubus

Andre Dubus

Andre Dubus, II was an American short story writer, essayist, and autobiographer. Dubus is recognized as one of the most prolific American short-story writers in the 20th century.-Early life and education:...

, William Faulkner

William Faulkner

William Cuthbert Faulkner was an American writer from Oxford, Mississippi. Faulkner worked in a variety of media; he wrote novels, short stories, a play, poetry, essays and screenplays during his career...

 (a newly discovered story), Barry Hannah

Barry Hannah

Howard Barry Hannah was an American novelist and short story writer from Mississippi.The author of eight novels and five short story collections , Hannah worked with notable American editors and publishers such as Gordon Lish, Seymour Lawrence, and Morgan Entrekin...

, Nanci Kincaid

Nanci Kincaid

Nanci Kincaid is an American novelist who wrote a short story collection titled Pretending the Bed Is a Raft , as well as novels Crossing Blood , Balls , Verbena , and As Hot As It Was You Ought to Thank Me . The film My Life Without Me was based on the title story in Pretending the Bed Is a Raft...

, Aaron Gwyn

Aaron Gwyn

Aaron Gwyn was born in Tulsa, Oklahoma and is an American short story author and novelist. He received his PhD in English from the University of Denver and now is an associate professor of English at University of North Carolina - Charlotte where he teaches fiction writing and contemporary...

, Barbara Kingsolver

Barbara Kingsolver

Barbara Kingsolver is an American novelist, essayist and poet. She was raised in rural Kentucky and lived briefly in the former Republic of Congo in her early childhood. Kingsolver earned degrees in biology at DePauw University and the University of Arizona and worked as a freelance writer before...

, Bobbie Ann Mason

Bobbie Ann Mason

Bobbie Ann Mason is an American novelist, short story writer, essayist, and literary critic from Kentucky.With four siblings Mason grew up on her family's dairy farm outside of Mayfield, Kentucky. As a child she loved to read, so her parents, Wilburn and Christina Mason, always made sure she had...

, Reynolds Price

Reynolds Price

Reynolds Price was an American novelist, poet, dramatist, essayist and the James B. Duke Professor of English at Duke University. Apart from English literature, Price had a lifelong interest in ancient languages and Biblical scholarship...

, Keith Lee Morris

Keith Lee Morris

Keith Lee Morris is an American author who has published two novels, The Greyhound God and The Dart League King , as well as two collections of short stories, The Best Seats in the House and Other Stories and Call It What You Want...

, John Sayles

John Sayles

John Thomas Sayles is an American independent film director, screenwriter and author.-Early life:Sayles was born in Schenectady, New York, the son of Mary , a teacher, and Donald John Sayles, a school administrator. He was raised Catholic and took to labeling himself "a Catholic atheist"...

, Lucy Corin

Lucy Corin

Lucy Corin is an American novelist and short story writer currently teaching English at University of California, Davis. Her stories have appeared in The Mid-American Review, Conjunctions, Tin House, Ploughshares, PEN America, and the Iowa Review...

, Lee Smith

Lee Smith (author)

Lee Smith is an American fiction author who typically incorporates much of her home roots in the Southeastern United States in her works of literature. She has received many writing awards, such as the O. Henry Award, the American Academy of Arts and Letters Award for Fiction, and the North...

, and Peter Taylor

Peter Matthew Hillsman Taylor

For other people named Peter Taylor, see Peter Taylor.Peter Matthew Hillsman Taylor was a U.S. author and writer.-Biography:...

.

Resource

Shannon Ravenel (editor), New Stories from the South, 2005, (Chapel Hill: Algonquin Books of Chapel Hill, 2005).