WRITERS HARVEST 3

            The money raised by these Writer’s Harvest anthologies, which collect representative work by both new and well-established writers, is donated to the Share Our Strength coalition, devoted to ending hunger, thus allowing writers, in the words of Tobias Wolff, “the chance to put their work at the service of others without any sanctimonious distortions of their voices and interests.”  This year’s gathering of 15 tales includes “Out of the Woods,” a sad and convincing slice-of-life from the southern backwoods, by Chris Offut; “Extension,” a meditation on the diminishments worked on life by age and change, by John Barth; “The Blind Neighbor,” by Mary Gordon, a deft dissection of the ways desire and resentment can blunt or warp behavior; Stewart O’Nan’s “20 Burgers,” about grief and adolescent anomie; and Barry Lopez’s “Stolen Horses,” about a young man’s attempt to redeem himself after one violent mistake.  Frederick Busch, Jim Shepard, Tim Gautreaux, and Bridget Gerrity are among the other contributors.