The Best American Short Stories 1978, a volume in The Best American Short Stories series, was edited by Shannon Ravenel and by guest editor Theodore Solotaroff. The volume was published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt.
Background The series is considered one of the "best-known annual anthologies of short fiction""Short and Sweet" by Mark Harris, Entertainment Weekly, 11/05/99, issue 511, page 73. and has anthologized more than 2,000 short stories, including works by some of the most famous writers in contemporary American literature, curated by well-known guest editors since 1915."The Best American Short Stories of the Century," Publishers Weekly, 3/8/1999, volume 246, issue 10, page 47. Specifically, Amy Hempel considered it and the O. Henry Award's prize anthology to compile "the best short fiction published in American and Canadian magazines during the preceding year."
In particular, the Willa Cather Review wrote that The Best American Short Stories series "became a repository of values" for creative writing programs and literary magazines, specifically with considerable "influence" in college libraries, short fiction courses, and fiction workshops."'Long-Cellared Wine': 'Double Birthday,' Edward J. H. O'Brien, and the Best American Short Stories Series" by Timothy W. Bintrim and Scott Riner, Willa Cather Review, spring 2023, volume 64, issue 1, page 18.
Short stories included Author Story SourceLeslie Epstein"Skaters on Wood"EsquireJoyce Carol Oates"The Translation"TriQuarterlyElizabeth Cullinan"A Good Loser"The New YorkerHarold Brodkey"Verona: A Young Woman Speaks"EsquireMark Helprin"The Schreuderspitze"The New YorkerPeter Taylor"In the Miro District"The New YorkerRobert T. Sorrells"The Blacktop Champion of Ickey Honey"American ReviewNatalie L. M. Petesch"Main Street Morning"New LettersMax Schott"Murphy Jones: Pearblossom, California"AscentIan McEwan"Psychopolis"American ReviewPeter Marsh"By the Yellow Lake"The New YorkerStanley Elkin"The Conventional Wisdom"American ReviewJohn Gardner"Redemption"The AtlanticLynne Sharon Schwartz"Rough Strife"The Ontario ReviewTim McCarthy"The Windmill Man"The Colorado QuarterlyL. Hluchan Sintetos"Telling the Bees"Prairie SchoonerJoy Williams"Bromeliads"The Cornell ReviewJane Bowles"Two Scenes"AntaeusGilbert Sorrentino"Decades"EsquireJames Kaplan"In Miami, Last Winter"EsquireJonathan Baumbach"The Return of Service"American ReviewMary Ann Malinchak Rishel"Staus"The Hudson Review
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