Includes bibliographical references (pages 669-671).

This is what it means to say Phoenix, Arizona / Sherman Alexie

Death by landscape / Margaret Atwood

Raymond's run / Toni Cade Bambara

Sarah Cole : a type of love story / Russell Banks

Click / John Barth

The school / Donald Barthelme

Wild horses / Rick Bass

The man who knew Belle Starr / Richard Bausch

Gryphon / Charles Baxter

Customs of the country / Madison Smartt Bell

Silver water / Amy Bloom

Tall tales from the Mekong Delta / Kate Braverman

A good scent from a strange mountain / Robert Olen Butler

The year of getting to know us / Ethan Canin

Errand / Raymond Carver

Woman Hollering Creek / Sandra Cisneros

White angel / Michael Cunningham

Fiesta 1980 / Junot Diaz

Pet milk / Stuart Dybek

The prophet from Jupiter / Tony Earley

Saint Marie / Louise Erdrich

Rock Springs / Richard Ford

The mail lady / David Gates

Same place, same things / Tim Gautreaux

Nebraska / Ron Hansen

In the cemetery where Al Jolson is buried / Amy Hempel

Emergency / Denis Johnson

Marie / Edward P. Jones

Cold snap / Thom Jones

Doe season / David Michael Kaplan

Patriotic / Janet Kauffman

Girl / Jamaica Kincaid

Territory / David Leavitt

The kind of light that shines on Texas / Reginald McKnight

You're ugly, too / Lorrie Moore

The management of grief / Bharati Mukherjee

Meneseteung / Alice Munro

Ghost girls / Joyce Carol Oates

The things they carried / Tim O'Brien

The shawl / Cynthia Ozick

Brokeback Mountain / Annie Proulx

Strays / Mark Richard

Intensive care / Lee Smith

The way we live now / Susan Sontag

Two kinds / Amy Tan

First, body / Melanie Rae Thon

Able, Baker, Charlie, Dog / Stephanie Vaughn

Nineteen fifty-five / Alice Walker

Fever / John Edgar Wideman

Taking care / Joy Williams