The Little Wife

Edith Pearlman has published more than 250 works of short fiction and short non-fiction in national magazines, literary journals, anthologies, and on-line publications. Her work has appeared in Best American Short Stories, the O. Henry Prize Collection, Best Short Stories from the South, and The Pushcart Prize Collection

Lullaby

From The Best American Short Stories 1975, Martha Foley ed. (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1975): 254-62. Originally published in The Chicago Review

Short Story, Beginnings to 1900

In an era when most American literature came from the North, the South distinguished itself most notably in the short story, producing two of its foremost authorities in Edgar Allan Poe and Mark Twain, as well as one of its best-known characters in Uncle Remus. Through the short story, furthermore, southerners led in the development of two important American genres: Southwestern humor and local color. The hundreds of stories in this rich tradition cover a range of characters and landscapes, from madmen ensconced in gothic mansions to saucy backwoodsmen romping over the frontier, and the best early southern stories share a brilliance of form and style

Fixing

Matt Freidson\u27s stories have appeared in New England Review, Confrontation, Michigan Quarterly Review, and Best New American Voices 2006. He lives in England

Afterglow

Stellar Kim is a fiction writer whose short stories have won several awards, including from The Atlantic Monthly, Iowa Review, and Ontario Review. Her recent work appears in The Best American Short Stories 2007, published by Houghton Mifflin and guest edited by Stephen King. Winner, The Cater V. Cooper Memorial Prize for Fiction, the Ontario Review, 2007

[Review of] Americo Paredes. The Hammon and the Beam and Other Stories

Américo Paredes is a seminal figure in Mexican-American studies. Professor Emeritus of English and Anthropology at the University of Texas at Austin, he is best known for his work in folklore, principally With His Pistol in His Hand: A Border Ballad and lts Hero. But after a distinguished career as teacher and scholar, he has turned in recent years to literature (mostly written years ago), with the publication of a novel (George Washington Gomez) in 1990 and a collection of poetry (Between Two Worlds) in 1991. The present accumulation of seventeen stories, combined with Paredes’ novel and poetry, provide a clear and comprehesive [comprehensive] literary view of Mexican-American life in Texas and elsewhere during the first half of the twentieth century. An excellent introduction by Ramon Saldivar presents a much-needed history of south Texas and the recurrent ”border troubles” so that the reader can better comprehend the socio-cultural milieu which gave birth to the stories. In Saldivar’s words, Paredes\u27 collection represents brilliantly ”the difficult dialectic between a Mexican past and an American future for the Texas Mexicans living on the border at the margin of modernity and modernization”(xvi). Saldivar also includes information about the author and the histories of many of the selections -- where they were written, dates of composition, circumstances, etc. Most appear in print for the first time in a colorful and attractive volume with cover desigh [design] by Mark Pinon

The “Kaleidoscope of Life”: Story as Vital for Values Education

Educators and the general American public continue to favor character education programs in public schools, but many are unsure how best to teach values. Currently, and in the past, literature-based approaches to character education have received advocacy because of the values stories contain and because of the nature of story itself. Story is universal and uniquely character-molding and is a time-honored method to fostering understanding. This fact can be gleamed in religious and secular traditions alike, having been used and advocated by as wide array of individuals as Jesus Christ and N. Scott Momaday. Numerous bases—spiritual, historical, psychological, and philosophical—exist for using story. Stories are powerful, emotionally provocative, and effective not only in exploring the meaning of various values, but also in providing particular benefits, such as organizing ideas or enhancing awareness. For these reasons, literature-based approaches to character education can become the ideal foundation for imparting an understanding of universally esteemed values and building character traits

The contemporary American short story (a study of The Best American short stories, 1950-1959)

The purpose of this paper is to analyze and review the contemporary short story by means of an intensive study of The Best American Short Stories of the past ten years. The obvious weakness of the project is that all these two hundred and forty-five short stories were selected as the best of each year by one person, Martha Foley. While she is generally respected as a critic, still her opinions are based on her own taste and judgement alone. It is possible that she leans too much toward avant­-garde stories, or even that she may prefer stories of one subject over stories of another. Therefore, it must a always be remembered that the original selection was hers and may not be as representative as one could wish. On the other hand. however, it seemed advisable to study a group of stories which had already been sorted and selected, rather than just read as many stories as possible by as many writers as possible

Shadow Bands

Jeanne Schinto, a former OR contributor, has published also in Ascent, Cimarron Review, Greensboro Review, and elsewhere. A story of hers appeared in The Best American Short Stories 1984, edited by John Updike

Stories of Trouble and Troubled Stories: Narratives of Anti-German Sentiment from the Midwestern United States

This article examines narratives of “trouble” from elderly second- and third- generation German American residents of Illinois. During the First and Second World Wars, many German American communities experienced targeted anti- German sentiment combined with government-sponsored efforts to eradicate the German language in schools, churches, and public spaces (Luebke, 1974; Tolzmann, 2001). Elderly narrators who tell stories about this time do so at considerable narrative risk, revealing both troubling memories and troubled tellings in the process. Troubled stories are difficult narrative terrain for these community members, and while they help complicate over-generalized portraits of German American assimilation, they present painful and often buried portraits of the past best forgotten in the minds of many. Despite their taboo nature, these stories of anti-German sentiment offer an important corollary to anti-immigrant feeling in the present day, especially in Midwestern regions that are experiencing heavy migration from newer immigrant communities