New Stories from the South

Summary

New Stories from the South is an annual compilation of short stories published by Algonquin Books of Chapel Hill between 1986 and 2010 and billed as the year's best stories written by Southern writers or about the Southern United States. The stories are collected from more than 100 literary magazines, including The Atlantic, Harper's Magazine, The New Yorker, the Oxford American, The Paris Review, Ploughshares, and The Southern Review. Shannon Ravenel, then the editor of the annual Best American Short Stories anthology, launched the New Stories from the South series in 1986 and compiled and edited every volume until 2006. To mark the third decade of the series, Algonquin invited author and John Simon Guggenheim Fellow Allan Gurganus to be guest editor.[1]

New Stories from the South has collected the work of many prominent modern American writers, including Steve Almond, Russell Banks, John Barth, Madison Smartt Bell, Wendell Berry, Roy Blount Jr., Larry Brown, James Lee Burke, Robert Olen Butler, Andre Dubus, William Faulkner (a newly discovered story), Barry Hannah, Nanci Kincaid, Aaron Gwyn, Barbara Kingsolver, Bobbie Ann Mason, Reynolds Price, Keith Lee Morris, John Sayles, Lucy Corin, Lee Smith, and Peter Taylor.

List of Compilations and Stories edit

New Stories from the South: The Year's Best, 1986. Edited by Shannon Ravenel. ISBN 9780912697406.

New Stories from the South: The Year's Best, 1987. Edited by Shannon Ravenel. ISBN 9780912697666.

New Stories from the South: The Year's Best, 1988. Edited by Shannon Ravenel. ISBN 9780912697901.

New Stories from the South: The Year's Best, 1989. Edited by Shannon Ravenel. ISBN 9780945575276.

New Stories from the South: The Year's Best, 1990. Edited by Shannon Ravenel. ISBN 9780945575528.

New Stories from the South: The Year's Best, 1991. Edited by Shannon Ravenel. ISBN 9780945575825.

New Stories from the South: The Year's Best, 1992. Edited by Shannon Ravenel. ISBN 9781565120112.

New Stories from the South: The Year's Best, 1993. Edited by Shannon Ravenel. ISBN 9781565120532.

New Stories from the South: The Year's Best, 1994. Edited by Shannon Ravenel. ISBN 9781565120884.

New Stories from the South: The Year's Best, 1995. Edited by Shannon Ravenel. ISBN 9781565121232.

New Stories from the South: The Year's Best, 1996. Edited by Shannon Ravenel. ISBN 9781565121553.

Best of the South: From Ten Years of New Stories from the South. 1997. Selected and introduced by Anne Tyler. ISBN 9781565121287.

New Stories from the South: The Year's Best, 1997. Edited by Shannon Ravenel with a preface by Robert Olen Butler. ISBN 9781565121751.

  • Corporal Love by Dale Ray Phillips
  • Ramone by Judy Troy
  • Help me fine my spaceman lover by Robert Olen Butler
  • The taxi ride by Patricia Elam Ruff
  • Little frogs in a ditch by Tim Gautreaux
  • After the opera by Marc Vassallo
  • The Green Suit by Dwight Allen
  • Gravity by Pam Durban
  • Native daughter by Lee Smith
  • Along a wider river by Janice Daugharty
  • Ashes north by Edward Allen
  • Julia and Nellie by Ellen Douglas
  • The finest wife by Elizabeth Gilbert
  • Simpler components by Lucy Hochman
  • Marrying Aunt Sadie by Gene Able
  • Mojo farmer by Brad Vice
  • The half-pint by Beauvais McCaddon
  • Every building wants to fall by Rhian Margaret Ellis
  • Pavane for a dead princess by Charles East

New Stories from the South: The Year's Best, 1998. Edited by Shannon Ravenel with a preface by Padgett Powell. ISBN 9781565122192.

New Stories from the South: The Year's Best, 1999. Edited by Shannon Ravenel with a preface by Tony Earley. ISBN 9781565122475.

New Stories from the South: The Year's Best, 2000. Edited by Shannon Ravenel with a preface by Ellen Douglas. ISBN 9781565122956.

New Stories from the South: The Year's Best, 2001. Edited by Shannon Ravenel with a preface by Lee Smith. ISBN 9781565123113.

  • Where what gets into people comes from by Moira Crone
  • The Saturday morning car wash club by James Ellis Thomas
  • The hero of loneliness by Christie Hodgen
  • Make a wish by Elizabeth Tippens
  • Jolie-Gray by Ingrid Hill
  • Inappropriate babies by Linda Wendling
  • I am not like Nuñez by Jane R. Shippen
  • Public relations by George Singleton
  • The paperhanger by William Gay
  • Pink miracle in East Tennessee by Robert Love Taylor
  • Jesus is sending you this message by Jim Grimsley
  • In between things by Marshall Boswell
  • The whimsied world by Nicola Mason
  • Two lives by Madison Smartt Bell
  • Father judge run by Carrie Brown
  • Skin deep by Edith Pearlman
  • Shoes by Kurt Rheinheimer
  • Hunting country by Stephen Coyne
  • The rest of your life by John Barth

New Stories from the South: The Year's Best, 2002. Edited by Shannon Ravenel with a preface by Larry Brown. ISBN 9781565123755.

New Stories from the South: The Year's Best, 2003. Edited by Shannon Ravenel with a preface by Roy Blount, Jr. ISBN 9781565123953.

New Stories from the South: The Year's Best, 2004. Edited by Shannon Ravenel with a preface by Tim Gautreaux. ISBN 9781565124325.

New Stories from the South: The Year's Best, 2005. Edited by Shannon Ravenel with a preface by Jill McCorkle. ISBN 9781565124691.

Best of the South: From the Second Decade of New Stories from the South. 2005. Edited by Shannon Ravenel; selected and introduced by Anne Tyler. ISBN 9781565124707.

  • The host by Marcia Guthridge
  • The Happy Memories Club by Lee Smith
  • Ramone by Judy Troy
  • Gravity by Pam Durban
  • Memorial Day by Mark Richard
  • Talk radio by Scott Ely
  • Birdland by Michael Knight
  • Fla. boys by Heather Sellers
  • Those Deep Elm Brown's Ferry blues by William Gay
  • Sheep by Thomas H. McNeely
  • Debra's flap and snap by Clyde Edgerton
  • Jesus is sending you this message by Jim Grimsley
  • Hunting country by Stephen Coyne
  • The unripe heart by Max Steele
  • Faith healer by Lucia Nevai
  • The faithful by Paul Prather
  • Second hand by Chris Offutt
  • Intervention by Jill McCorkle
  • Good witch, bad witch by Gregory Sanders
  • The boucherie by Stephanie Soileau
  • Appendix: New Stories from the South, 1986-2005.

New Stories from the South: The Year's Best, 2006. Edited by Alan Gurganus and Kathy Pories with a preface by Alan Gurganus. ISBN 9781565125315.

New Stories from the South: The Year's Best, 2007. Edited by Edward P. Jones. ISBN 9781565125568.

New Stories from the South 2008: The Year's Best. Edited by ZZ Packer and Kathy Pories with an introduction by ZZ Packer. ISBN 9781565126121.

New Stories from the South 2009: The Year's Best. Edited by Madison Smartt Bell and Kathy Pories with an introduction by with an introduction by Madison Smartt Bell. ISBN 9781565126749.

New Stories from the South: The Year's Best, 2010. Edited by Amy Hempel and Kathy Pories with an introduction by Amy Hempel. ISBN 9781565129863.

Resource edit

  • Shannon Ravenel (editor), New Stories from the South, (Chapel Hill: Algonquin Books of Chapel Hill, 2005).