Selected from an extensive nationwide search, this book of fifteen stories by American writers twenty-five years old and younger represents a wide and diverse range of visions, sensibilities, techniques, and themes, providing a vivid glimpse of our world through the eyes of young artists as we approach the twenty-first century. Ranging from quiet vignettes of triumph over daily despair to richly textured narratives of almost epic proportion, the themes explored here are at once contemporary and timeless - the often tangled relationship between parent and child, the lingering legacy of the war in Vietnam, the mysteries of birth, death, sexuality, and marriage, and the sometimes redemptive power of suffering.