Just about anything by Flannery O'Connor. "Good Country People" may be my most favorite favorite, but that's just right this minute.

Mark Helprin, despite being a dickwad neocon speechwriter, is not only a great novelist but a phenomenal short story writer. Anything at all in Ellis Island and Other Stories is just heartstoppingly good.

I love "Angel Levine" by Bernard Malamud so very much.

It's been a while since I read them so I can't rattle off any titles, but Muriel Spark was a fantastic short story writer, crisp and vivid and snarkalicious.

I will always, always have a soft spot for Harlan Ellison's "I Have No Mouth And I Must Scream." My main memory of it is of a classmate bringing it in to discuss during our senior creative thesis seminar (each of us was to lead the class for one week, bringing in a piece of professional, published writing for us to read before class and then dissect for an hour). After months and months of pallid understated Raymond Carver and a billion less-gifted imitators, IHNMAIMS was a gloriously revolting, smelly, pulpalicious smack in the face. Rude and coarse and obvious and bracing.

Class began, I was all geared up to open my mouth (which I never did in this class) and launch into academia-speak for "Dudes! This fuckin' rocks!" and the guy who'd brought it in said, "So, this story was certainly my single greatest creative influence as a teenager and was such a huge part of why I wanted to become a writer. But now I look at it and I'm amazed that it ever had such power over me. It's juvenile and obvious and I really feel a sense of relief, looking back and seeing how much I've grown past this."

Sigh.

Cereal: I'm chair-dancing with glee that I share a short story brain with Scrappy and ita!

I just did some googling, and it looks like the Tiptree story I was thinking of is "With Delicate Mad Hands." Heartbreakingly beautiful.

Oh, Stephen King! He was the first author whose short stories I read outside of school (Night Shift was the first collection, I believe). At that age, "Quitters, Inc." freaked my shit right out!

I am, by the way, nodding madly with most of these titles even if I'm not chiming in. I love short-stories.

La Peau Verte and The Dead and the Moonstruck by Caitlin R. Kiernan. The Girl Who Killed Dracula by Tanith Lee. Forbidden Brides of the Faceless Slaves in the Nameless House of the Night of Dread Desire by Neil Gaiman (which is, hands down, my favorite piece by him. No, really.)

Simak's "Shadow Show" and the stories that make up City. Kornbluth's "The Marching Morons."

Good Country People is my fave.

LOVE!!!!

Your screenplay reminded me very much ofa Flanney O'Connor story, BTW.

Oh, there was a short-story, I can't remember the title or author where I read it, but it was about a woman who had a dream that someone stood at the foot of her bed and told her that if she cut off a toe she could prevent a disaster - it was her toe or a ship going down. She tells herself it's just a dream, etc., the next morning the newspaper has news of the ship going down, of course. So she sharpens a knife to keep on her nightstand so she'll be ready the next time.

"Axolotl" by Julio Cortazar (They don't have to be American, right?)
"Views of my Father Weeping" by Donald Barthelme
"The Girl Detective" by Kelly Link
"Giovanni's Room" by James Baldwin
"I Stand Here Ironing" by Tillie Olsen
"Zeroville" by Steve Erickson

...Are these for adults or kids? Because I have a bunch of collections right here I can recommend.

Class began, I was all geared up to open my mouth (which I never did in this class) and launch into academia-speak for "Dudes! This fuckin' rocks!" and the guy who'd brought it in said, "So, this story was certainly my single greatest creative influence as a teenager and was such a huge part of why I wanted to become a writer. But now I look at it and I'm amazed that it ever had such power over me. It's juvenile and obvious and I really feel a sense of relief, looking back and seeing how much I've grown past this."

Heh. On the one hand, I've been in that position so. many. times. I love something, think it's brilliant, and either praise it or am about to...and someone comes up with one of those remarks to the effect that anyone who sees any merit in this MUST lack taste or be shallow and juvenile or whatever.

OTOH, I've also on many occasions tried something as an adult that moved me 10 or 20 years ago, and been all, "Really, YoungerSusan? That?! Why?!" And I still haven't figured out if there's a polite way to say that Book X used to move me but I must've outgrown it or something that doesn't insult all the grown-ups who still love it.