The Graywolf Short Stories, first published in 1985, was a celebration-in-print of the renaissance of the short story. For years, fewer and fewer short stories were being published in general magazines and fewer collections of stories were being issued by book publishers. Increasingly, though, a growing number of writers turned their considerable talents to revitalizing the short story form. Enthusiastic readers found short stories to be perfectly suited to our neat little bundles of life-as-it-is-truly-lived to be read in one sitting by the commuter, the traveller, or the busy person in search of intellectual nourishment and pleasure. Our premier issue of the Graywolf Annual salutes this literary renaissance by presenting a dozen stories by such gifted authors as Elizabeth Tallent, Richard Ford, Ellen Gilchrist, Tobias Wolff, and Margaret Atwood.