Anna Berzani moved halfway across the country to get away from her overprotective family. When old friend and notorious playboy Evan McKenzie shows up in San Francisco, Anna feels that same nothing-but-trouble attraction she'd felt at sixteen. A night on the town leads to a few kisses, which leads to…a nine-month countdown!Practical Anna suggests marriage, but the gorgeous bachelor turns her down flat. He's anything but good daddy material.Evan always felt like an ...

Kate Stevens needs a daddy for her baby-to-be. Candidates must be dependable, stay-at-home family men who don't rush off to sea every time the wind changes. Patrick Berzani need not apply. The adventure-loving sailor may be the baby's biological father, but he's far from daddy material.Patrick thought he and Kate were great together before, but now? They could be even better. And for Kate to believe he wouldn't be a good father to his child, well, Patrick has something to say about...

The Winter 2015-16 issue of Ploughshares. Ploughshares is an award-winning journal of new writing. Two out of each year's three issues are guest-edited by prominent writers who explore different personal visions, aesthetics, and literary circles, with the Winter issue staff-edited.The stories, poems, and essays that comprise this staff-edited issue of Ploughshares are diverse and timely. Visit a South African laundromat in Laurie Baker’s short story, Here I Am, Laughing with Boers;...

After a decade on the road, single mom Mimi Green gives up her rock star dreams and goes home to Crab Creek, Maryland. Her troubled son needs stability. Grandparents. A good school and friends his own age.She's not looking for a new father for Jack—but when she meets Ian Berzani she may need the handsome sailor for herself!When Ian nabs a nine-year-old trespasser in the family boatyard, he thinks, miniature rebel without a clue. One look at the kid's mother and Ian...

From personal loss to phantom diseases, The Empathy Exams is a bold and brilliant collection, winner of the Graywolf Press Nonfiction PrizeA Publishers Weekly Top Ten Essay Collection of Spring 2014Beginning with her experience as a medical actor who was paid to act out symptoms for medical students to diagnose, Leslie Jamison's visceral and revealing essays ask essential questions about our basic understanding of others: How shou...

Andrea Gibson's dynamic and energetic first book Pole Dancing to Gospel Hymns challenges us to not only read but to react. Hauntingly vivid the poems march through a soldier's lingering psychological wounds tackle the curious questions of school children on the meaning of "hate" and tangle with a lover's witty and vibrant description of longing. Gibson's poems deconstruct the current political climate through stunning imagery and careful crafting. With the same velocity the poign...

The O. Henry Prize Stories 2013 gathers twenty of the best short stories of the year, selected from thousands published in literary magazines. The winning stories take place in such far-flung locales as a gorgeous sailboat in Hong Kong, a Cuban sugar plantation, the Kenai River in Alaska, a mansion in New Delhi, a ship torpedoed by a German U-boat, and the ghost-haunted rubble of a Turkish girls’ school. Also included are the editor’s introduction, essays from the jurors (Lauren G...

A "category-defying [and] engaging" collection of short fiction and nonfiction by Phil Klay, George Saunders, Jess Walter, Nora Krug, and more ( Kirkus Reviews).Chosen by Dave Eggers and a freewheeling discussion group of passionate student readers, this edition of the annual anthology includes selections ranging from novelist Mona Simpson's eulogy for her brother Steve Jobs to a piece by prize-winning historian Adam Hochschild first published in the Oc...

The political humorist shares his transformation from dirty hippie to conservative middle-aged grouch: "An incorrigible comic gift" ( The New York Times Book Review).The #1 New York Times–bestselling author of Give War a Chance was at one time a raving pinko, with scars on his formerly bleeding heart to prove it. In Age and Guile: Beat Youth, Innocence, and a Bad Haircut, P. J. O'Rourke chronicles the remarkable trajectory that t...

A hilarious collection from McSweeney's that "achieves the sensation of being hit by a hip, humorous train.... Breaks mold after mold in hilarious fashion" (The New York Times).Now more than ever, Americans are troubled by questions. As sweaty modernity thrusts itself upon us, the veil of ignorance that cloaked our nation hangs in tatters, tattered tatters. Our "funny bones" are neither fun nor bony. Glum is the new giddy, and the old giddy wasn't too gidd...

The Best American Series®First, Best, and Best-SellingThe Best American series is the premier annual showcase for the country's finest short fiction and nonfiction. For each volume, the very best pieces are selected by a leading writer in the field, making the Best American series the most respected—and most popular—of its kind.The Best American Nonrequired Reading 2011 includesDaniel Alarcón, Clare Beams, Sloane Crosley, Anthony Doerr, Neil Gaiman, Mo...

Dave Eggers and his students at the 826 Valencia and 826 Michigan writing labs compile fiction, nonfiction, poetry, and comics, as well as category-defying gems that have become one of the hallmarks of this lively collection.