€œAs our vision becomes more global, our storytelling is stretching in many ways. Stories increasingly change point of view, switch location, and sometimes pack as much material as a short novel might,€ writes guest editor Elizabeth Strout. €œIt€s the variety of voices that most indicates the increasing confluence of cultures involved in making us who we are.€ The Best American Short Stories 2013 presents an impressive diversity of writers who dexterously lead us into their corners of the world.

In €œMiss Lora,€ Junot D­az masterfully puts us in the mind of a teenage boy who throws aside his better sense and pursues an intimate affair with a high school teacher. Sheila Kohler tackles innocence and abuse as a child wanders away from her mother, in thrall to a stranger she believes is the €œMagic Man.€ Kirstin Valdez Quade€s €œNemecia€ depicts the after-effects of a secret, violent family trauma. Joan Wickersham€s €œThe Tunnel€ is a tragic love story about a mother€s declining health and her daughter€s helplessness as she struggles to balance her responsibility to her mother and her own desires. New author Callan Wink€s €œBreatharians€ unsettles the reader as a farm boy shoulders a grim chore in the wake of his parents€ estrangement.

€œElizabeth Strout was a wonderful reader, an author who knows well that the sound of one€s writing is just as important as and indivisible from the content,€ writes series editor Heidi Pitlor. €œHere are twenty compellingly told, powerfully felt stories about urgent matters with profound consequences.€