The Story and Its Writer
Ann Charters' anthology of short fiction, long used in university courses, pairing around a hundred and fifty stories with commentary from the writers themselves on craft and on the specific story. That second half is what distinguishes it: alongside Chekhov, Joyce, O'Connor, Carver and Munro sit their own essays and letters about how the work was made. Large, frequently reissued, and built for a course rather than for reading straight through.