In her introduction to The Best American Short Stories 2009, guest editor Alice Sebold writes, "More than mere solace is to be gained by reading good stories—short stories in particular. Stories provide an endless access into another world, brought forth by an infinite number of gifted minds. A story about grief can comfort; a story about arrogance can shock and yet confirm; a story populated largely by landscape, whether lush or industrial, can expand the realm that we as individuals inhabit."

The twenty stories in this collection bring readers to varied and surprising terrain. Sarah Shun-Lien Bynum's "Yurt" explores the attempts of a young teacher to come to terms with envy. Adam Johnson's "Hurricanes Anonymous" gives us a man navigating his way through single fatherhood in a post-Hurricane Katrina, nearly apocalyptic Louisiana. In "The Farms," a new writer, Eleanor Henderson, tells of a teenager in a gritty Florida apartment complex facing the stigma and suspicion of her new neighbors, and few newcomer Namwali Serpell deftly explores the colonial experience through the eyes of a girl living in Zambia. The sweet joys of young love and marriage are dampened by the bitter hardships of life on the frontier in Annie Proulx's heartbreaking "Them Old Cowboy Songs."

Though all these brilliant storytellers approach their subjects in different ways, each story allows the reader a new perspective on that which challenges, invigorates, and adds meaning to our lives regardless of time, place, or world situation. Series editor Heidi Pitlor writes in her foreword that these selections "demonstrate the human ability to endure crises and to regenerate afterward. There is nothing safe about these stories."