About the Book
"To read their stories felt to me the way I suspect other people feel hearing jazz for the first time," recalls Curtis Sittenfeld of her initial encounter with the Best American Short Stories series. "They were windows into emotions I had and hadn't had, into other settings and circumstances and observations and relationships." Decades later, Sittenfeld was met by the same feeling selecting the stories for this year's edition. The result is a striking and nuanced collection, bringing to life awkward college students, disgraced public figures, raunchy grandparents, and mystical godmothers. To read these stories is to experience the transporting joys of discovery and affirmation, and to realize that story writing in America continues to flourish.
THE BEST AMERICAN SHORT STORIES 2020 INCLUDES T. C. BOYLE - EMMA CLINE - MARY GAITSKILL
ANDREA LEE - ELIZABETH McCRACKEN - ALEJANDRO PUYANA WILLIAM PEI SHIH - KEVIN WILSON and others
About the Author :
Curtis Sittenfeld is the author of New York Times bestselling books and short story collections that have been translated into thirty languages and twice selected as Reese's Book Club picks. Her stories have also appeared in the New Yorker, The Atlantic, and The Best American Short Stories.
Curtis Sittenfeld is the author of New York Times bestselling books and short story collections that have been translated into thirty languages and twice selected as Reese's Book Club picks. Her stories have also appeared in the New Yorker, The Atlantic, and The Best American Short Stories.
Curtis Sittenfeld is the author of New York Times bestselling books and short story collections that have been translated into thirty languages and twice selected as Reese's Book Club picks. Her stories have also appeared in the New Yorker, The Atlantic, and The Best American Short Stories.
Curtis Sittenfeld is the author of New York Times bestselling books and short story collections that have been translated into thirty languages and twice selected as Reese's Book Club picks. Her stories have also appeared in the New Yorker, The Atlantic, and The Best American Short Stories.
Curtis Sittenfeld is the author of New York Times bestselling books and short story collections that have been translated into thirty languages and twice selected as Reese's Book Club picks. Her stories have also appeared in the New Yorker, The Atlantic, and The Best American Short Stories.
Heidi Pitlor is a former senior editor at Houghton Mifflin Harcourt and has been the series editor for The Best American Short Stories since 2007. She is the author of the novels The Birthdays, The Daylight Marriage, and Impersonation.
Heidi Pitlor is a former senior editor at Houghton Mifflin Harcourt and has been the series editor for The Best American Short Stories since 2007. She is the author of the novels The Birthdays, The Daylight Marriage, and Impersonation.
Heidi Pitlor is a former senior editor at Houghton Mifflin Harcourt and has been the series editor for The Best American Short Stories since 2007. She is the author of the novels The Birthdays, The Daylight Marriage, and Impersonation.
Kevin Wilson has spent most of his working life as a staff journalist on British national newspapers, including the Daily Mail and the Sunday Express. He is the author of Blood and Fears and Airborne in 1943. Emma Cline is the Sunday Times and New York Times bestselling author of The Girls and the story collection Daddy. The Girls was a finalist for the Center for Fiction's First Novel Prize, the National Book Critics Circle John Leonard Award, and the Los Angeles Times Book Prize. It was a New York Times Editors' Choice and was the winner of the Shirley Jackson Award. Cline's stories have been published in The New Yorker, Granta, The Paris Review and The Best American Short Stories. She received the Plimpton Prize from The Paris Review and an O'Henry Award, and was chosen as one of Granta's Best Young American Novelists. Peter Ganim, an Earphones Award-winning narrator, is an American actor who has appeared on stage, on television, and in film. He has performed voice-over work since 1994.
Ilyana Kadushin is an Earphone Award-winning narrator, actor, and singer who was born in Miami and raised in the rural cornfields of Maryland. She attended the Tisch School of Arts in New York City and has performed in many theater productions.
A two-time Audie Award winner, veteran actor Robert Fass is equally at home in a wide variety of styles, genres, characters, and dialects. An eight-time Audie nominee with over 225 unabridged audiobooks to his credit, Robert has also earned multiple Earphones Awards. In addition, his work was listed among AudioFile's Best Audiobooks of the Year in 2011, 2012, 2013, 2016, and 2018. Robert has given voice to modern and classic fiction writers alike, including Ray Bradbury, John Steinbeck, Carlos Fuentes, Jeffrey Deaver, and Nele Neuhaus, plus bestselling nonfiction works in history, politics, health, journalism, philosophy, and business. Emily Woo Zeller began her voice-over career by voicing animation in Asia. She returned to the United States in 2009 and found a natural fit as an audiobook narrator. Described by AudioFile magazine as doing "an extraordinary job of varying the voices in the dialogue without losing the intimacy of the story," Emily's multilingual, multicultural framework brings a particularly unique, clear-eyed, and intimate perspective into Asian American narratives. While she specializes in Asian American narratives, Emily's work spans a broad spectrum, including young adult fiction and such titles as The Whites of Their Eyes by Jill Lepore and The Sex Diaries Project by Arianne Cohen. She also narrated Gulp by Mary Roach, for which she won an AudioFile Earphones Award. Michael Crouch is an actor based in New York City. His audiobook narrations have earned an Audie Award, multiple Earphones Awards, and Best of the Year accolades from Booklist, School Library Journal, and Publishers Weekly. He can also be heard on national commercials, cartoons, video games, and the anime series Pokemon XY and Yu-Gi-Oh! Arc-V. Gary Bennett is an award-winning SAG-AFTRA audiobook narrator. He's narrated over 120 audiobooks for publishers including Macmillan, Penguin Random House, Harper Audio, Hachette Audio, Tantor, Dreamscape, Podium Audio, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, and others.
Robin Miles is a veteran of Broadway, classical plays, television, and film. She is an AudioFile Golden Voice, having won numerous Earphones Awards, ALA awards, and Audie Award nominations. Rebecca Lowman is an actress and audiobook narrator who has won numerous Earphones Awards. She has starred in numerous television shows, including Law & Order, Big Love, NCIS, and Grey's Anatomy, among many others. She earned her MFA from Columbia University.
Kevin T. Collins is an acclaimed audiobook narrator who has recorded over two hundred titles, including Earphones and Audie winners. A New York-based actor and director, he works Off-Broadway, on TV, and on film. A graduate of Carnegie Mellon, Ramon De Ocampo is best known for his television work, especially for his recurring roles on many hit TV shows, including The West Wing, Notorious, 12 Monkeys, Sons of Anarchy, Killer Instinct, Medium, and Major Crimes. His film work includes indie film hit Happy Endings and the summer action film xXx: State of the Union. He is the winner of a prestigious OBIE Award for his Off-Broadway stage work, and has performed all over the world. A longtime audiobook narrator, Ramon is an Audie Award nominee and has won eleven AudioFile Earphones Awards, including Best Voice two years in a row.
Brittany Pressley is an experienced voiceover artist, songwriter, vocal producer, and actress who lives in New York City. Her notable screen credits include being a newscaster on FOX Kid's News and playing Courtney in the television series Swans Crossing. Her theater credits include Midsummer Night's Dream and The Sound of Music. As a voiceover artist, she has done both regional and national commercial spots and PSAs for television and radio, and she has narrated several audiobooks. Cindy Kay is a Chinese Thai American narrator and educator who grew up in the California Bay Area and lives in the Rockies. Her work has been described as listening to a "cozy best friend." She narrates fiction and nonfiction, and has studied Spanish, Portuguese, Thai, and Japanese.
Read by Gabra Zackman, Karen Sepulveda, Keisha Zollar, Fred Berman, Soneela Nankani, Nancy Wu, Emily Woo Zeller, Dara Rosenberg, Erin Moon, Piper Goodeve, Julia Farhat, and Saskia Maarleveld
Suzanne Toren has over 30 years of experience in recording. She won the American Foundation for the Blind's Scourby Award for Narrator of the Year in 1988, and AudioFile magazine named her the 2009 Best Voice in Nonfiction & Culture. She is also the recipient of multiple Earphones Awards. Her many credits include works by Jane Smiley, Margaret Weis, Jerry Spinelli, Barbara Kingsolver, and Cynthia Rylant. AudioFile also raves, "Toren brings a distinguishing warmth and power to her narrations. Her talents extend to both fiction and nonfiction, and in her recording career of 30-plus years she has given listeners heart-wrenching memoirs, lively history, engaging light fiction, and involving mysteries." Toren also performs on and off-Broadway and in regional theatres. Thérèse Plummer is an actor, award-winning voice-over artist, and counselor. She has won eighteen AudioFile Earphones Awards and has been a finalist for the prestigious Audie Award for best narration. She has appeared in a variety of television and film roles. As a counselor for adolescents, she spent five years using drama therapy techniques in individual and group settings.
Tracey Leigh is an audiobook narrator and actor with numerous theater, television, and radio credits.
William DeMerrit is a voice talent and AudioFile Earphones Award-winning narrator.
Priya Ayyar is an audiobook narrator, actor, and writer with a BFA and MFA from NYU's Tisch School of the Arts. Her acting credits for television and film include Law & Order: Criminal Intent, All My Children, and the documentary The Children of War. She has appeared on stage in War of the Unheard, Aminta, and The Road Home, and she has written and performed in the plays Karmic Fusion and Losing Remote Control.
Robert Petkoff is an actor and audiobook narrator who has won a prestigious Audie Award and multiple AudioFile Earphones Awards and has been named an AudioFile Golden Voice. He has appeared on Chappelle's Show, Law & Order, and Quantum Leap. His Broadway credits include Sir Robin in Spamalot, Perchik in Fiddler on the Roof, and Tateh in Ragtime.
Soneela Nankani is the award-winning narrator of over 300 titles in many different genres, including young adult, fantasy, romance, sci-fi, and nonfiction. A recipient of AudioFile magazine's Golden Voice Lifetime Achievement Honor, she has garnered sixteen Earphones awards as well as nominations for Audie and SOVAS awards. Her audiobooks have been featured in Best Audiobooks lists by AudioFile and the Washington Post, among others. In her spare time, she loves to read (yes, really), learn languages, try new recipes, and travel. She lives in the DC area with her husband and two mischievous daughters.
Review :
"Sittenfeld herself provides an extensive introduction to the audio collection...The works themselves are skillfully delivered by an assortment of accomplished narrators who maximize the impact...Winner of the AudioFile Earphones Award."
-- "AudioFile"
"These twenty masterfully crafted short stories, selected by Sittenfeld, are an incredible entry to the popular series...Outstanding and well worth the read."
-- "Booklist (starred review)"
