Algonquin Announces Stories from the South

By Neal 

After tipping us off to some of the year’s best short stories yesterday, Dan Wickett was one of the first with the news that Algonquin Books had revealed the contents of this year’s edition of New Stories from the South, as chosen by guest editor Edward P. Jones. For Jones, the assignment was in the nature of a personal calling. “When asked if I would choose the stories for 2007,” he writes in an introduction to the collection, “the busy me initially said no, but the other me remembered that no other annual anthology but New Stories from the South reprinted my story from The Paris Review… I am here now because it meant something to have that story anthologized.” In addition to seasoned veterans like Rick Bass and Allan Gurganus, the anthology will also feature rising stars such as Joshua Ferris, along with sixteen other writers.