Love, in some of the infinite ways we may know it, is the shared concern of these stories, which have been chosen from among the hundreds that have appeared in the prestigious Flannery O’Connor Award for Short Fiction series.

More than seventy volumes, which include approximately eight hundred stories, have won the Flannery O’Connor Award. This stunning trove of always engaging, often groundbreaking short fiction is the common source for this anthology on love—and for planned anthologies on such topics as work, family, animals, children, and more.

Emerging love, or love on its way out the door. Love that transcends, or love that just stubbornly hangs on. These fourteen stories give us at least that many new ways of looking at a state of mind that can send us either soaring or plummeting, all in a heartbeat.