"A construction worker on the run from the shady local businessman whose dog he has stolen; a Wild West re-enactor engaged in a long-running affair with the Indian "squaw" who slays him on the battlefield every year; a middle-aged high school janitor caught in a scary dispute over land and cattle with her former step-son - Callan Wink's characters are often confronted with predicaments few of us can imagine. But thanks to the humor, remarkable empathy...

"In an aging, timber house hand-built into the Absaroka-Beartooth mountains, two brothers are struggling to keep up with their debts. They live off the grid, on the fringe of Yellowstone, surviving off the wild after the death of their father. Thad, the elder, is more capable of engaging with things like the truck registration, or the medical bills they can't afford from their father's fatal illness, or the tax lien on the cabin their grandfather...

Presents twenty of the best works of short fiction of the past year from a variety of acclaimed sources.