The contributors to Off the Beaten Path include many of our finest writers: Julia Alvarez, Rick Bass, Rita Mae Brown, Gretel Ehrlich, Barry Lopez, Howard Norman, and E. Annie Proulx, whose story "The Half-Skinned Steer" was eventually included by John Updike in The Best American Short Stories of the Century. From the ominous to the humorous, from the tall tale to the meditative monologue, these stories reflect the variety and character of our diminishing wildland and, in the end, lead us to places in ourselves that only the best fiction can reveal.