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Lee K. Abbott, "Gravity" in All Things, All at Once.
A man's 14-year-old daughter disappears from the mall.

Sherman Alexie, "This Is What It Means to Say Phoenix, Arizona" in The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven.
A young Native American drives to Arizona with a friend to collect his father's body.

Julian Barnes, "Knowing French" in The Lemon Table.
An elderly woman in a retirement home writes a series of letters to the author Julian Barnes after discovering his book Flaubert's Parrot.

Andrea Barrett, "The Behavior of the Hawkweeds" in Ship Fever.
A genetics professor uses a story of his wife's family connection to Mendel in his class but she grows to resent him for it.

Ann Beattie, "Snow" in Where You'll Find Me.
A woman reflects on a winter she spent in a country house with a former lover.

Saul Bellow, "Leaving the Yellow House" in Mosby's Memoirs and Other Stories.
An old woman living alone must examine her past after an accident threatens her independence.

Amy Bloom, "Stars at Elbow and Foot" in A Blind Man Can See How Much I Love You.
A woman who lost her baby at birth opens her heart to a disabled boy.

Jorge Luis Borges, "The Zahir" in Labyrinths.
A man falls under the thrall of a Zahir—an object that causes those who see it to become obsessed and lose touch with reality.

Elizabeth Bowen, "A Day in the Dark" in The Collected Stories of Elizabeth Bowen.
A 15-year-old girl in a small Irish town makes a discovery that changes her perception of the relationships between men and women.

T.C. Boyle, "Stones in My Passway, Hellhound on My Trail" in Greasy Lake and Other Stories.
Blues musician Robert Johnson gives his final performance.

Ethan Canin, "Where We Are Now" in Emperor of the Air.
A married couple in Los Angeles go house hunting for a new home they can't afford.

Raymond Carver, "Cathedral" in Cathedral.
A man resents his wife's friendship with a blind man but then forms an unlikely bond with him.

John Cheever, "The Swimmer" in The Stories of John Cheever.
A man decides to swim home across his neighbors' pools but finds everything has completely changed by the time he reaches home.

Eugenia Collier, "Marigolds" in Coming of Age in America. 813.008 Com
A girl in a shanty town during the Depression responds to hearing her father cry by destroying a lady's carefully tended flowers.

Alice Elliott Dark, "In the Gloaming" in In the Gloaming: Stories.
A mother cares for her son who is dying of AIDS.

Anthony Doerr, "The Caretaker" in The Shell Collector: Stories.
An African war refugee escapes to the U.S. and carves out a new life on the grounds of an estate.

Andre Dubus, "The Fat Girl" in Selected Stories.
A woman struggles her weight, the pressure to diet, and her self image.

Stuart Dybek, "Chopin in Winter" in The Coast of Chicago.
A girl comes home from college pregnant and spends the evenings playing music by Chopin.

Joseph Epstein, "Felix Emeritus" in Fabulous Small Jews.
An aging literary scholar and Holocaust survivor moves into a nursing home.

Ellen Gilchrist, "Victory over Japan" in Victory over Japan: A Book of Stories.
A third-grader recounts events in her life during the final days of World War II.

Adam Haslett, "The Good Doctor" in You Are Not a Stranger Here.
A psychiatrist pays a house call to a disturbed woman in order to entice her into treatment.

Mark Helprin, "Il Colore Ritrovato" in The Pacific and Other Stories.
A man who discovered a famous but unhappy opera star finds another untrained soprano.

Amy Hempel, "In the Cemetery Where Al Jolson Is Buried" in The Collected Stories.
A woman visits a dying friend in the hospital.

Jhumpa Lahiri, "Mrs. Sen's" in Interpreter of Maladies.
A boy is cared for after school by an Indian woman who's finding it hard to adapt to life in the U.S.

Don Lee, "Lone Night Cantina" in Yellow.
A Korean-American woman bleaches her hair and becomes a regular at a cowboy bar.

Doris Lessing, "To Room Nineteen" in Stories.
A woman with a seemingly perfect suburban family makes a discovery that causes her to question her choices in life.

Alistair Macleod, "The Return" in Island: The Complete Stories.
A man who moved away to Vancouver returns to visit his family on the island of Cape Breton.

Bobbie Ann Mason, "Drawing Names" in Shiloh and Other Stories.
At a Christmas family gathering, a woman awaits the arrival of a boyfriend who promised to come.

Lorrie Moore, "Which Is More Than I Can Say about Some People" in Birds of America.
A mother and daughter take a trip to Ireland to kiss the Blarney Stone.

Alice Munro, "Runaway" in Runaway: Stories.
A woman is encouraged by a neighbor to leave her husband who is causing her distress.

John Murray, "The Hill Station" in A Few Short Notes on Tropical Butterflies.
An American doctor travels to her parents' native India and sees first-hand the effects of the disease that is her specialty.

Grace Paley, "The Loudest Voice" in The Collected Stories.
Jewish children are chosen for the lead roles in a public school Christmas pageant.

V.S. Pritchett, "The Camberwell Beauty" in Complete Collected Stories.
The insular world of antique dealers is examined.

Annie Proulx, "Brokeback Mountain" in Close Range.
Two Wyoming cowboys have a doomed love affair.

Alan Sillitoe, "The Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner" in New & Collected Stories.
A boy in a juvenile reformatory finds solace in running.

Lee Smith, "Tongues of Fire" in Me and My Baby View the Eclipse.
A young girl whose father is mentally ill and whose mother is preoccupied with her older sister falls in love with a new preacher at her church.

Richard Stern, "Dr. Cahn's Visit" in Almonds to Zhoof.
A man brings his father—who has late-stage Alzheimer's disease—to the hospital for a farewell to his dying wife.

William Trevor, "The Hotel of the Idle Moon" in The Collected Stories.
A couple asks for shelter at a remote country house, claiming their car has broken down.

John Updike, "A & P" in Pigeon Feathers and Other Stories.
A checkout boy at the A & P quits his job after his boss is rude to three girls wearing bathing suits.

Alice Walker, "Everyday Use" in In Love & Trouble.
A rural mother and her younger daughter are visited by the older daughter from the city who wants to put their everyday items into a museum.

Mary Yukari Waters, "Aftermath" in The Laws of Evening.
A war widow in Japan tries to instill traditional values in her son as her country becomes modernized and Americanized.

Joy Williams, "The Last Generation" in Escapes.
A girl befriends the younger brother of a boy who broke up with her.

Tobias Wolff, "Hunters in the Snow," in In the Garden of North American Martyrs.
A hunting trip among three friends turns deadly.

Richard Yates, "Dr. Jack-o-Lantern" in The Collected Stories of Richard Yates.
A boy from a poor neighborhood in New York City moves to the suburbs and is mocked by his new classmates.