New Stories from the Southwest

Book excerpt: The beauty and barrenness of the southwestern landscape naturallylends itself to the art of storytellers. It is a land of heat and dryness, aland of spirits, a land that is misunderstood by those living along thecoasts. New Stories from the Southwest presents nineteen short stories that appeared in North American periodicals between January and December 2006. Though many of these stories vary by aesthetics, tone, voice, and almost any other craft category one might wish to use, they are nevertheless bound together by at least one factor, which is that the landscape of the region plays a key role in their narratives. They each evoke and explore what it means to exist in thisunique corner of the country. Selected by editor D. Seth Horton, the former fiction editor for the Sonora Review, from a wide cross-section of journals and magazines, and with a foreword by noted writer Ray Gonzalez, New Stories from the Southwest presents a generous sampling of the best of contemporary fiction situated in this often overlooked area of the country. Swallow Press is particularly pleased to publish this wide-ranging collection of stories from both new and established writers. Contributors to New Stories from the Southwest are: - Alan Cheuse - Matt Clark - Lorien Crow - Kathleen De Azvedo - Alan Elyshevitz - Marcela Fuentes - Dennis Fulgoni - Ray Gonzalez - Anna Green - Donald Lucio Hurd - Toni Jensen - Charles Kemnitz - Elmo Lum - Tom McWhorter - S. G. Miller - Peter Rock - Alicita Rodriguez - John Tait - Patrick Tobin - Valery Varble