The O. Henry Prize Stories



		2008 One of reading's greatest pleasures is being taken out of ourselves. For however long a story lasts, we willingly lose our homes, families, jobs, and every other thing anchoring us to the everyday. We become pure spirits and minds, involved in nothing but the world the writer has created. This year's O. Henry Prize Stories take place all over the world--Australia, China, Switzerland, France, Malaysia, Canada, Ukraine, Ireland, the United States, and in an idyllic place extant only in the writer's imagination. Edward P. Jones has through his stories practically created a new nation of his native Washington, D.C., and "Bad Neighbors" takes its place among his best creations. Steven Millhauser's "A Change in Fashion" takes place on the planet of taste, its one definite locale a party in northwestern Connecticut. The authors are spread in as many countries as their stories. Michel Faber, for example, whose "Bye-bye Natalia" takes place in Ukraine, lives in rural Scotland. Locale and authorial nationality are a way of showing that this year's collection doesn't include one type of story stylistically or in subject matter or setting. The O. Henry Prize Stories 2008 witnesses the variety and richness of the short-story form by releasing the willing reader into twenty new lives. We're also introducing a new online feature this year. Each prize collection lists a small number of recommended stories, which we hope the reader will pursue. From now on, we'll include Author Spotlights highlighting the authors of the recommended stories and including a taste of each story. Of course, Author Spotlights with the O. Henry Prize-winning authors will also continue. The O. Henry Prize Stories 2008 has been a particular pleasure to edit. It's been fun tracking down the authors, soliciting interviews and bios, asking questions about the stories, and getting to know them by e-mail, or, in the case of one, by his neighbor's e-mail. It's my hope about every O. Henry collection that we fulfill the wish of those who founded it, "to strengthen the art of the short story," and in this edition to do so by demonstrating the range and reach of the form. --Laura Furman Austin, Texas April 28, 2008 (Copyright © 2008 Laura Furman) Read Laura Furman's introduction to The O. Henry Prize Stories 2008. Read previous editor's notes from: 2007 2005 2003 (photo © Laura Pickett Calfee)


	Laura Furman is the ninth series editor of The O. Henry Prize Stories, and the third woman to hold the position. Born in New York City in 1945 and educated at Hunter College High School, she received her B.A. from Bennington College in Vermont. There, she studied with Bernard Malamud and Stanley Edgar Hyman. After graduation, she made her living as an editor and copy-editor, working for the Menil Foundation in Houston, Texas, and for publishing houses in New York City. In 1978 she moved to Houston to be senior editor of a new city magazine. She has remained in Texas ever since, living for ten years in the small town of Lockhart before moving to her current residence in Austin. Laura Furman is an award-winning novelist, short-story writer, and essayist whose work has appeared in The New Yorker, Mirabella, Ploughshares, The Yale Review, Southwest Review, The Threepenny Review, Cosmopolitan, House & Garden, and elsewhere. She has written three collections of stories (The Glass House, Watch Time Fly, and Drinking with the Cook), two novels (The Shadow Line and Tuxedo Park), and a memoir (Ordinary Paradise). Critical response to Ms. Furman's work has been enthusiastic, from Raymond Carver's statement about The Glass House: "I think it's simply first-rate, this book;" to Anne Tyler's assessment in USA Today: "Tuxedo Park is the best entertainment imaginable, rich in plot and event, pulling the reader from page to page as powerfully as the most suspenseful thriller. But it's also good literature. It's finely crafted, each character lovingly, carefully wrought, each scene meticulously colored and every detail palpable;" to NPR's Alan Cheuse, who calls Furman "one of our country's most accomplished short fiction writers." Ms. Furman has been the recipient of a Dobie-Paisano Fellowship, and fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation and, most recently, the National Endowment for the Arts. She founded American Short Fiction, which was a three-time finalist for the National Magazine Award, and she co-edited the anthology Bookworms: Great Writers and Readers Celebrate Reading with Elinore Standard. Currently she is Professor of English at the University of Texas at Austin, where she teaches undergraduate and graduate courses in writing.