A Gravestone Made of Wheat is a collection of stories set against the beauty of Midwestern farm landscapes and small-town life. Of my six books of fiction, A Gravestone Made of Wheat is perhaps my favorite. I began my writing career writing short stories, and found great pleasure in the form. In contrast, the problem with writing a novel is the continual sense of incompleteness of always being in progress, never done. Second, the story form teaches you to write crisply and directly, with ongoing attention to the shape, or 'arc' of the story.
Revision is the key to good stories.
In fact, the Gravestone collection of stories took substantially more work than my large novel Red Earth, White Earth . And while my novel made a large splash, including a television movie production by CBS, it is this story collection that remains in print.