The O. Henry Prize stories 2018 : [the best short stories of the year] / chosen and with an introduction by Laura Furman ; with essays by jurors Fiona McFarlane. Otessa Moshfegh, Elizabeth Tallent on the stories they admire most.

The tomb of wrestling / Jo Ann Beard, Tin House -- Counterblast / Marjorie Celona, The Southern Review -- Nayla / Youmna Chlala, Prairie Schooner -- Lucky Dragon / Viet Dinh, Ploughshares -- Stop 'n' go / Michael Parker, New England Review -- Past perfect continuous / Dounia Choukri, Chicago Quarterly Review -- Inversion of Marcia / Thomas Bolt, n+1 -- Nights in Logar / Jamil Jan Kochai, A Public Space -- How we eat / Mark Jude Poirier, Epoch -- Deaf and blind / Lara Vapnyar, The New Yorker -- Why were they throwing bricks? / Jenny Zhang, n+1 -- An amount of discretion / Lauren Alwan, The Southern Review -- Queen Elizabeth / Brad Felver, One Story -- The stamp collector / Dave King, Fence -- More or less like a man / Michael Powers, The Threepenny Review -- The Earth, thy great exchequer, ready lies / Jo Lloyd, Zoetrope -- Up here / Tristan Hughes, Ploughshares -- The houses that are left behind / Brenda Walker, Kenyon Review -- We keep them anyway / Stephanie A. Vega, The Threepenny Review -- Solstice / Anne Enright, The New Yorker -- Reading the O. Henry Prize Stories 2018: the jurors on their favorites -- Writing the O. Henry Prize Stories: the writers on their work.

The O. Henry Prize Stories 2018 contains twenty breathtaking stories— by a vibrant mix of established and emerging writers— selected by the series editor from the thousands published in literary magazines over the previous year. The collection includes essays by the three eminent guest jurors on their favorite stories, observations from the winning writers on what inspired them, and a comprehensive resource list of the many magazines and journals, both large and small, that publish short fiction.