Stories Wanting Only to Be Heard is an anthology of twenty-eight stories that must be read, from the backcountry blues of Jesse Stuart and Harry Crews to the intellectual sophistication of Fred Pfeil and Fred Chappell, from Pam Durban’s terrific “This Heat” to Donald Hall’s blistering “The World Is a Bed,” from Jim Heynen’s charming “Stories about the Boys” to Jack Driscoll’s devastating story about a boy named Judge. In my experience, no other literary publication could shape an anthology as wide in its range of subjects or as varied in its modes of telling. This is not only an excellent anthology but an exciting one.

—Kelly Cherry, author of Girl in a Library: On Women Writers & the Writing Life and We Can Still Be Friends: A Novel

When a journal can bring together work originally published in its pages by such authors as diverse as Mary Hood and Harry Crews, Pam Durban and T. C. Boyle, Jesse Stuart and Ernest J. Gaines, John Edgar Wideman and Jack Driscoll, we readers out here are blessed beyond measure. This is a worthy book. Period.

—Bret Lott, author of Ancient Highway

Lovers of short fiction, rejoice: this is a volume to be celebrated. In an array of styles, across sixty-five years, these stories speak urgently—often with wit, sometimes tragically—about the turns our lives take, the unexpected heartbreak, the astonishing triumph. Voices sing out in these pages, a chorale that expresses the steady, illuminating intelligence of this work and the editors who selected it. Maybe, as the title says, the stories here want only to be heard. Once heard, though, they will be remembered. And passed on. And cherished.

—Erin McGraw, author of The Seamstress of Hollywood Boulevard

The list of authors featured here . . . make this a veritable textbook for aspiring writers and a joy for readers. . . . There is much to be proud of in Stories Wanting Only to Be Heard, and Corey et al. have done a spectacular job of picking through the treasure trove of material from the vast archives of The Georgia Review. It's an enviable job, and one done very well. For those who have given up on fiction, this anthology will bring you back into the fold.

—John G. Nettles, Flagpole

[T]he stories in this collection are of the highest quality. . . .They are memorable and gratifying—just what one would expect from the Georgia Review.

—Terri Lee Hackman, Modern Language Review