Title: Texas bound
Description: This collection brings together twenty-two stories. Most are the work of contemporary writers, published within the past decade and, in many cases, selected for prize anthologies or otherwise hononed. With the narrative drive typical of Texas storytelling, they move back and forth in time, up and down the social ladder, around the state and, occasionally, across state lines.

Some of the strongest are stories about children: James Lee Burke's portrayal of a boy's fear and confusion when his father helps an escaped convict, Sandra Cisneros's sassy and poignant monologue on money and the Barbie culture, and John Bennet's account of a perilous upbringing on a broken-down East Texas farm.

Some authors (Marshall Terry, Hermine Pinson) depict actual cities; others, such as Donald Barthelme, Annette Sanford, and new writer Matt Clark, set their startling tales in indeterminate terrain.

Throughout the collection, vivid characters spring to life. Dagoberto Gilb's writer tempting fate in El Paso, Lisa Sandlin's girl on her first car date, and Robert Olen Butler's lovesick parrot. Not to mention R. E. Smith's stylish Houstonite whose back-to-nature weekend changes her life, and Miles Wilson's has-been poet who, in the final story, gets the last laugh.
Subjects: Social life and customs, Fiction, American Short stories
Places: Texas