Story and Its Writer with 2016 MLA Update
An Introduction to Short FictionNinth Edition ©2015
Get the most recent updates on MLA citation in a convenient, 40-page resource based on The MLA Handbook, 8th Edition, with plenty of models. Browse our catalog or contact your representative for a full listing of updated titles and packages, or to request a custom ISBN.
Ann Charters has a...
Read more
Institutional Prices
The bestselling introduction to fiction anthology where stories and their writers do the talking
The bestselling introduction to fiction anthology where stories and their writers do the talking
Get the most recent updates on MLA citation in a convenient, 40-page resource based on The MLA Handbook, 8th Edition, with plenty of models. Browse our catalog or contact your representative for a full listing of updated titles and packages, or to request a custom ISBN.
Ann Charters has an acute sense of which stories work most effectively in the classroom and knows that writers, not editors, have the most interesting and useful things to say about the making and the meaning of fiction. Instructors look forward to every new edition of her bestselling anthology to see what stories her constant search for new fiction and neglected classics will turn up. To complement the stories, Charters includes her signature innovation: an array of the writers’ own commentaries on the craft and traditions of fiction. For in-depth, illustrated studies of particular writers or genres, her Casebooks provide unparalleled opportunities for discussion and writing. The new ninth edition features many very recent stories and commentaries by up-and-coming writers, a new Casebook on the important genre of Magical Realism, and expanded coverage of close reading.
"Charters’ commentary on the elements of fiction is lucid and measured, as are her biographical blurbs. The selection of stories is evidence of a generous sensibility, and the casebooks and statements about writing about writers are useful tools for helping students understand writers as purposeful effects-creators."—Jonathan Gagas, Temple University "This is the only textbook I have every enjoyed. It is the only textbook I use."—Bernard Kaplan, University of Delaware
Table of Contents
*indicates new selectionCONTENTSPreface Introduction: The Story and Its Writer Part One: StoriesChinua Achebe, Civil Peace Sherman Alexie, The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven *Isabelle Allende, An Act of VengeanceSherwood Anderson, Hands Margaret Atwood, Happy Endings *Isaac Babel, My First Goose James Baldwin, Sonny’s Blues Toni Cade Bambara, The Lesson Russell Banks, Black Man and White Woman in Dark Green Rowboat Lynda Barry, San Francisco [graphic story] *Donald Barthelme, At the Tolstoy Museum*Ann Beattie , JanusAlison Bechdel , From Fun Home: "Old Father, Old Artificer" [graphic story] Ambrose Bierce, An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge *Roberto Bolano, Jim *Jorge Luis Borges, The South Tadeusz Borowski , This Way for the Gas, Ladies and Gentlemen*T. Coraghessan Boyle, Birnam WoodRay Bradbury, August 2026: There Will Come Soft RainsAlbert Camus, The Guest *Alejo Carpentier, Journey to The Seed *Angela Carter, The Kiss Raymond Carver, Cathedral Raymond Carver, A Small, Good Thing Raymond Carver, What We Talk About When We Talk About Love Willa Cather, Paul’s Case John Cheever, The Swimmer Anton Chekhov, The Darling Anton Chekhov, The Lady with the Little Dog Kate Chopin, Désirée’s Baby Kate Chopin, The Story of an Hour Sandra Cisneros, Barbie-Q Samuel Clemens (Mark Twain), Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras CountyJoseph Conrad, Heart of Darkness *Julio Cortázar, AxolotlStephen Crane, The Open Boat Edwidge Danticat, Night Women *Lydia Davis, Blind DateJunot Díaz, How to Date a Browngirl, Blackgirl, Whitegirl, or Halfie *Edith Maud Eaton (Sui Sin Far), The Story of One White Woman Who Married a Chinese*Edith Maud Eaton (Sui Sin Far), Her Chinese Husband *Larry Eigner, Act Ralph Ellison, Battle Royal *Nathan Englander, What We Talk About When We Talk About Anne FrankLouise Erdrich, The Red Convertible William Faulkner, A Rose for Emily William Faulkner, That Evening Sun *F. Scott Fitzgerald, Winter Dreams*Janet Frame, Two Sheep*Carlos Fuentes, Pain*Mary Gaitskill, The Other Place Gabriel García Márquez, A Very Old Man with Enormous Wings *William Gass, A Fugue *Dagoberto Gilb, Love in L.A.Charlotte Perkins Gilman, The Yellow Wallpaper Nikolai Gogol, The Overcoat *Nathaniel Hawthorne, The Minister’s Black VeilNathaniel Hawthorne, Young Goodman Brown Ernest Hemingway, Hills Like White Elephants Zora Neale Hurston, The Gilded Six-Bits Zora Neale Hurston, Sweat Washington Irving, Rip Van Winkle Shirley Jackson, The Lottery Henry James, The Real Thing Sarah Orne Jewett, A White Heron Ha Jin, Saboteur *Denis Johnson, WorkJames Joyce, Araby James Joyce, The Dead Franz Kafka, A Hunger Artist Franz Kafka, The Metamorphosis Etgar Keret, Not Human Beings Jamaica Kincaid, Girl *Nora Krug, Kamikaze [graphic story] Jhumpa Lahiri, Interpreter of Maladies D.H. Lawrence, Odour of Chrysanthemums D.H. Lawrence, The Rocking Horse Winner Ursula K. Le Guin, The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas *Doris Lessing, To Room 19*Clarice Lispector, The Smallest Woman in the World,Jack London, To Build a Fire Katherine Mansfield, Miss Brill Bobbie Ann Mason, Shiloh Guy de Maupassant, The Necklace Herman Melville, Bartleby, the Scrivener *Steven Millhauser, Flying Carpets *Lorrie Moore, Referential *Alice Munro, Age of Faith*Haruki Murakami, UFO in Kushiro*Vladimir Nabokov, Signs and Symbols *Santiago Nazarian, Fish Spine Joyce Carol Oates, The Lady with the Pet Dog Joyce Carol Oates, Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?Tim O’Brien, The Things They CarriedFlannery O’Connor, Everything That Rises Must Converge Flannery O’Connor, Good Country People Flannery O’Connor, A Good Man Is Hard to FindFrank O’Connor, Guests of the Nation Tillie Olsen, I Stand Here Ironing *Daniel Orozco, Orientation*Julie Otsuka, The Children Cynthia Ozick, The Shawl ZZ Packer, Brownies Grace Paley, A Conversation with My FatherGrace Paley, Mother Octavio Paz, My Life with the Wave Edgar Allan Poe, The Cask of Amontillado Edgar Allan Poe, The Fall of the House of UsherEdgar Allan Poe, The Tell-Tale Heart *Katherine Anne Porter, Maria Concepción W.S. Porter (O. Henry), The Gift of the Magi Annie Proulx, Job History *Jamie Quatro, 1.7 To Tennessee Philip Roth, The Conversion of the JewsJoe Sacco, From Palestine: Refugeeland [graphic story] Marjane Satrapi, From Persepolis: The Veil [graphic story] *George Saunders, Sticks *Saïd Sayrafiezadeh, A Brief Encounter with The Enemy Leslie Marmon Silko, Yellow WomanArt Spiegelman, Prisoner on the Hell Planet: A Case History [graphic story] John Steinbeck, The Chrysanthemums Amy Tan, Two Kinds Leo Tolstoy, The Death of Ivan Ilych Jean Toomer, Blood-Burning Moon John Updike, A&P *Luis Alberto Urrea, Father Returns From the Mountain *Helen Maria Viramontes, Miss Clairol Kurt Vonnegut, Jr., Harrison Bergeron Alice Walker, Everyday Use *David Foster Wallace, Everything Is Green Eudora Welty, A Worn Path Edith Wharton, The Other Two John Edgar Wideman, newborn thrown in trash and dies William Carlos Williams, The Use of Force *Tobias Wolff, Bullet in the Brain Tobias Wollf, Say Yes Virginia Woolf, Kew Gardens Richard Wright, The Man Who Was Almost a Man Part Two: Commentaries Chinua Achebe, An Image of Africa: Racism in Conrad’s "Heart of Darkness"Sherman Alexie, Superman and MePaula Gunn Allen, Whirlwind Man Steals Yellow WomanSherwood Anderson, Form, Not Plot, in the Short StoryMargaret Atwood, Reading BlindMatthew C. Brennan, Plotting against Chekhov: Joyce Carol Oates and "The Lady with the Dog"Cleanth Brooks and Robert Penn Warren, A New Critical Reading of "The Fall of the House of Usher"Ann Charters, Translating KafkaJohn Cheever, Why I Write Short StoriesAnton Chekhov, Technique in Writing the Short StoryKate Chopin, How I Stumbled upon MaupassantSamuel Clemens (Mark Twain), Private History of the "Jumping Frog" StoryStephen Crane, The Sinking of the CommodoreRalph Ellison, The Influence of Folklore on "Battle Royal"Richard Ellmann, A Biographical Perspective on Joyce’s "The Dead"William Faulkner, The Meaning of "A Rose for Emily"Richard Ford, Why We Like ChekhovCarlos Fuentes, Mexico, the United States, and the Multicultural FutureJanice H. Harris, Levels of Meaning in Lawrence’s "The Rocking Horse Winner"Zora Neale Hurston, How It Feels to Be Colored MeZora Neale Hurston, What White Publishers Won’t PrintShirley Jackson, The Morning of June 28, 1948 and "The Lottery"Henry James, The Genesis of "The Real Thing"Gustav Janouch, Kafka’s View of "The Metamorphosis"Sarah Orne Jewett, Looking Back on GirlhoodJamaica Kincaid, On "Girl"Anne Lamott, Finding Your VoiceD.H. Lawrence, On "The Fall of the House of Usher" and "The Cask of Amontillado"Ursula K. LeGuin, The Scapegoat in OmelasSimon Lewis, Lahiri’s "Interpreter of Maladies"Jack London, Letter to the Editor on "To Build a Fire"Katherine Mansfield, Review of Woolf’s "Kew Gardens"Guy de Maupassant, The Writer’s GoalHerman Melville, Blackness in Hawthorne’s "Young Goodman Brown"J. Hillis Miller, A Deconstructive Reading of Melville’s "Bartleby, the Scrivener"Alice Munro, How I Write Short StoriesVladimir Nabokov, Gogol’s Genius in "The Overcoat"Vladimir Nabokov, A Reading of Chekhov’s "The Lady with the Little Dog"J.C.C. Nachtigal, Peter Klaus the GoatherdTim O’Brien, Alpha CompanyFrank O’Connor, The Nearest Thing to Lyric Poetry Is the Short StoryFrank O’Connor, Style and Form in Joyce’s "The Dead"*Daniel Orozco, On Steven Millhauser’s "Flying Carpets" *Cynthia Ozick, Isaac Babel: "Let Me Finish"Grace Paley, A Conversation with Ann ChartersJay Parini, Lawrence’s and Steinbeck’s "Chrysanthemums"Edgar Allan Poe, The Importance of the Single Effect in a Prose TaleEdward W. Said, The Past and the Present: Joseph Conrad and the Fiction of AutobiographyLeslie Marmon Silko, Language and Literature from a Pueblo Indian Perspective*Matt Steinglass, Reading Tim O’Brien In Hanoi Amy Tan, In the Canon, for All the Wrong ReasonsLeo Tolstoy, Chekhov’s Intent in "The Darling"Leo Tolstoy, The Works of Guy de Maupassant *Luis Alberto Urrea, On "Father Returns From The Mountain"Alice Walker, Zora Neale Hurston: A Cautionary Tale and a Partisan ViewEudora Welty, Is Phoenix Jackson’s Grandson Really Dead?Part Three: CasebooksCASEBOOK ONE: James Baldwin’s "Sonny’s Blues" James Baldwin, Autobiographical NotesKeith E. Byerman, Words and Music: Narrative Ambiguity in "Sonny’s Blues" Kenneth A. McClane, "Sonny’s Blues" Saved My Life CASEBOOK TWO: Raymond Carver Raymond Carver, On Writing Raymond Carver, Creative Writing 101 Raymond Carver, The Bath Tom Jenks, The Origins of "Cathedral" Arthur M. Saltzman, A Reading of "What We Talk About When We Talk About Love" A.O. Scott, Looking for Raymond Carver CASEBOOK THREE: Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s "The Yellow Wallpaper"Charlotte Perkins Gilman, Why I Wrote "The Yellow Wallpaper" Charlotte Perkins Gilman, Undergoing the Cure for Nervous ProstrationSandra M. Gilbert and Susan Gubar, A Feminist Reading of Gilman’s "The Yellow Wallpaper" Elaine Showalter, On "The Yellow Wallpaper" CASEBOOK FOUR: Flannery O’ConnorFlannery O’Connor, From Letters, 1954-55 Flannery O’Connor, Writing Short Stories Flannery O’Connor, A Reasonable Use of the UnreasonableJoyce Carol Oates, The Parables of Flannery O’Connor Wayne C. Booth, A Rhetorical Reading of O’Connor’s "Everything That Rises Must Converge" Dorothy Tuck McFarland, On "Good Country People" CASEBOOK FIVE: Joyce Carol Oates’s "Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?" Joyce Carol Oates, Stories That Define Me: The Making of a WriterJoyce Carol Oates, Smooth Talk: Short Story into Film Don Moser, The Pied Piper of Tucson: He Cruised in a Golden Car, Looking for Action *CASEBOOK SIX: Magical Realism Jorge Luis Borges, Borges and I *Alejo Carpentier, On the Marvelous Real in America *Alejo Carpentier, The Baroque and the Marvelous Real *Luis Leal, Magical Realism in Spanish American Literature * William Gass, The First Seven Pages of the Boom *Ursula K. Le Guin, The Kind of Fiction Most Characteristic of Our Times *Mario Vargas Llosa, The Prose Style of Jorge Luis Borges and Gabriel García Márquez CASEBOOK SEVEN: Graphic Storytelling Alison Bechdel, What the Little Old Ladies FeelCharles Hatfield, From Alternative Comics: Toward the Habit of Questioning Michael Kupperman, Are Comics Serious Literature? [graphic story] Sydney Plum, Reading "The Veil" by Marjane Satrapi Joe Sacco, Some Reflections on Palestine Edward W. Said, Homage to Joe Sacco Part Four: AppendicesReading Short Stories [includes Grace Paley, Samuel] The Elements of Fiction A Brief History of the Short Story Writing About Short Stories Literary Theory and Critical Perspectives Glossary of Literary Terms Chronological Listing of Authors and Stories *Thematic Index Index of Authors and Titles
Authors
Ann Charters
Ann Charters received her B.A. from the University of California at Berkeley and her Ph.D. from Columbia University. Her first book, Nobody: A Story of Bert Williams, was a biography of the West Indian comedian Bert Williams, an early eminent Black entertainer on the American stage. In 1973, she published the first biography of Jack Kerouac after working with him on his bibliography. She went on to edit the Selected Letters of Jack Kerouac, The Portable Jack Kerouac Reader, and The Portable Beat Reader, among other anthologies of Beat literature. Her photographs have appeared in Beats & Company and Blues Faces. Since 1985 she has been the editor of The Story and Its Writer. She is Professor Emerita of English at the University of Connecticut.
Program Resources
See a preview of this program’s resources
1. Sign in to unlock your preview. | 2. Select your desired resources | 3. Submit a request. | 4. Download.
Unlock Your Preview.Program Resources
Resources for Teaching The Story and Its Writer
Related Titles
We are processing your request. Please wait...
