Almond ’88,Tower ’96 in Best American Short Stories

Work by writers Steve Almond ’88 and Wells Tower ’96 have been selected for the recently published The Best American Short Stories 2010 (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt), edited by fiction writer Richard Russo.

Almond’s story in the collection, “Donkey Greedy, Donkey Gets Punched,” about a psychoanalyst who plays poker, was published originally in Tin House. The story will appear in his next story collection God Bless America. Almond is the author of two previous story collections, My Life in Heavy Metal and The Evil B. B. Chow, the best-selling Candyfreak, and most recently, the nonfiction book Rock and Roll Will Save Your Life.

Wells Tower’s story in the anthology, “Raw Water,” was written for McSweeney’s for an issue of stories set in the year 2024. According to Tower, his work deals with  “a manmade sea gone wrong, and the folks unfortunate enough to live on its shores.” Tower is an accomplished award-winning fiction and nonfiction writer, and his recent story collection, Everything Ravaged, Everything Burned, received acclaim in both the United States and abroad. Tower was chosen this year by The New Yorker as one of the best “20 Under 40” writers, which honors fiction writers under 40 years of age. He is currently a fellow at the New York Public Library’s Dorothy and Lewis B. Cullman Center.

The Best American Short Stories 2010 was recently featured in The Boston Globe and The Los Angeles Times.