Foreword -- Introduction -- The provincials from Granta / Daniel Alarc�on -- Bravery from Tin house / Charles Baxter -- Malaria from Bellevue literary review / Michael Byers -- Miss Lora from New Yorker / Junot D��iaz -- Horned men from ZYZZYVA / Karl Taro Greenfield -- The third dumpster from Granta / Gish Jen -- Encounters with unexpected animals from Esquire / Bret Anthony Johnston -- Magic man from Yale review / Sheila Kohler -- The chair from Paris review / David Means -- A voice in the night from New Yorker / Steven Millhauser -- Referential from New Yorker / Lorrie Moore -- Train from Harper's magazine / Alice Munro -- Chapter two from New Yorker / Antonya Nelson -- Nemecia from Narrative magazine / Kristin Valdez Quade -- Philanthropy from Granta / Suzanne Rivecca -- The Semplica-girl diaries from New Yorker / George Saunders -- The world to come from One story / Jim Shepard -- The wilderness from Threepenny review / Elizabeth Tallent -- The tunnel, or the news from Spain from Glimmer train / Joan Wickersham -- Breatharians from New Yorker / Callan Wink -- Contributors' notes -- Other distinguished stories of 2012 -- Editorial addresses of American and Canadian magazines publishing short stories.

Presents twenty of the best works of short fiction of the past year from a variety of acclaimed sources.