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.