As series editor of the O. Henry Awards prize stories collection, it is Laura Furman’s job to read through hundreds of literary magazines with the goal of finding the twenty best stories published in the United States or Canada in a given year. Furman, who teaches graduate and undergraduate writing courses at UT, has taken out her literary gold pan and come up with twenty more excellent tales for The Pen/O. Henry Prize Stories 2010 (Anchor Books). It’s hard to imagine how she sifted through so many undoubtedly great pieces of short fiction to come up with the crème de la crème, but we should all be grateful she did. more ›

Back in 1996, Junot Diaz published a collection of short stories, Drown, which became one of the most celebrated literary debuts of the Nineties. Drown drew on Diaz’s experiences growing up, first in the Dominican Republic, and later, from the age of six, in a northern New Jersey immigrant neighborhood. Now, after eleven years, he has just published his long-awaited first novel, The Brief and Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao. Wao, the protagonist, is a... more ›