The Best American Short Stories 2018

Editor: Roxane Gay, author of "Difficult women". "I am looking for the artful way any given story is conveyed", writes Roxane Gay in her introduction to "The Best American Short Stories 2018", "but I also love when a story has a powerful message, when a story teaches me something about the world." The artful, profound, and sometimes funny stories Gay chose for the collection transport readers from a fraught family reunion to an immigration detention center, from a psychiatric hospital to a coed class sleepover in a natural history museum. We meet a rebellious summer camper, a Twitter addict, and an Appalachian preacher all characters and circumstances that show us what we "need to know about the lives of others".

"The Best American Short Stories 2018" includes:

• Jamel Brinkley;
• Emma Cline;
• Danielle Evans;
• Carolyn Ferrell;
• Christina Henriquez;
• Tea Obreht;
• Ron Rash;
• Curtis Sittenfeld;
• Esme Weijun Wang and others.

Foreword
Introduction
Maria Anderson - Cougar
Jamel Brinkley - A family
Yooh Choi - The art of losing
Emma Cline - Los Angeles
Alicia Elliott - Uneath
Danielle Evans - Boys go to Jupiter
Carolyn Ferrell - A history of China
Ann Glaviano - Come on, silver
Jacob Guajardo - What got into us
Christina Henriquez - Everything is far from here
Kristen Iskandrian - Good with boys
Jocelyn Nicole Johnson - Control Negro
Mattew Lyons - The brothers Brujo
Dina Nayeri - A big true
Tea Obreht - Items awaiting protective enclosure
Ron Rash - The baptism
Amy Silverberg - Suburbia
Curtis Sittenfeld - The prairie wife
Rivers Solomon - Whose heart I long to stop with the click of a revolver
Esme Weijun Wang - What terrible thing it was
Contributors notes
Other distinguished stories of 2017