Inside the 2009 Edition
The Best American Series is the premier annual showcase for the country's finest short fiction and nonfiction. Each volume's series editor selects notable works from hundreds of periodicals. A special guest editor, a leading writer in the field, then chooses the best twenty or so pieces to publish. This unique system has made the Best American series the most respected—and most popular—of its kind.
Alice Sebold, this year's guest editor, is the author of the novels The Almost Moon and The Lovely Bones and the memoir Lucky. She lives in San Francisco with the novelist Glen David Gold.