Martha Jean / Leon V. Driskell -- After Moore / Mary Hood -- Where Pelham fell / Bob Shacochis -- Heart / Marly Swick -- The watch / Rick Bass -- Customs of the country / Madison Smartt Bell -- The rain of terror / Frank Manley -- A hank of hair, a piece of bone / Lewis Nordan -- Letter to the lady of the house / Richard Bausch -- The kind of light that shines on Texas / Reginald McKnight -- This is not the picture show / Nanci Kincaid -- The birds for Christmas / Mark Richard -- Intensive care / Lee Smith -- After Memphis / Patricia Lear -- The winnowing of Mrs. Schuping / Padgett Powell -- Charlotte / Tony Earley -- Marie / Edward P. Jones -- Nicodemus Bluff / Barry Hannah -- My other life / Melanie Sumner -- Water people / James Lee Burke, Like the venerable Best American Short Stories series (the 1983 volume of which Tyler and Ravenel edited together), each volume of New Stories from the South collects the best stories published in the previous year's magazines and literary journals. New Stories has been called "maybe the best annual story anthology around" (Kirkus Reviews) and "the collection others should use as a model" (The Charlotte Observer), By inviting Anne Tyler to choose and introduce her favorite stories from New Stories from the South, 1986-1995, the series celebrates its first decade with fanfare and colors flying - not to mention the literary fireworks of twenty great short stories