This exciting anthology by one of America's finest storytellers provides over ninety works of narrative art. With the reading list for her writing seminar at Princeton University as a model, Joyce Carol Oates chose pieces that will inspire beginning and experienced writers alike. Here are classics and relative unknowns, short vignettes and long genre fiction, tragic tales and humorous character sketches--models for just about any writer. Section introductions and an Afterword on the writing workshop provide a glimpse of Oates's own understanding of the storyteller's craft.