We can finally reveal the Best American Fantasy 2 table of contents. The focus of BAF is on North American writers published in North American publications (from 2007). We looked at several hundred genre and literary publications, and these were, we felt, the best stories from 2007. Ann and I are the guest editors this time, with Matthew Cheney as the series editor. The next volume will be guest edited by the marvelous Kevin Brockmeier.

As always, this anthology serves as a good alternative or companion to the other year’s best fantasy anthos, which tend not to look at, or look as closely at, the lit. mag side of things. You’ll notice that this year there are 10 stories by women, 8 by men.

In terms of the contributions from literary versus genre publications, there is more of a balance. This was not a conscience decision–it’s just how it worked out. We did decide to create better focus by being less figurative in our definition of “fantasy” and cutting the word count from 150,000 to 95,000 words.

I’ll have further posts about BAF and our reading, in terms of trends we saw (less fantasy in lit. mags over all, a slight downturn in the quality of online fiction, an absolute blitzkrieg of amazing work by women writers [with Tin House leading the way], etc.) The anthology will come out in Oct-November of this year.

Amundsen, Eric – “Bufo Rex” – Weird Tales

Baker, Kage – “The Ruby Incomparable” – Wizards

Beagle, Peter – “The Last and Only” – Eclipse 1

Bell, Matt – “Mario’s Three Lives” – Barrelhouse

Bender, Aimee – “Interval” – Conjunctions

Berry, Jedediah – “Minus, His Heart” – Cincinnati Review

Budnitz, Judith – “Abroad” – Tin House

Coates, Deborah – “Chainsaw, in Hand” – Asimov’s SF Magazine

Ford, Jeffrey – “The Drowned Life” – Eclipse 1

Hollander, David – “The Naming of the Islands” – McSweeney’s

Link, Kelly – “Light” – Tin House

Mellis, Miranda – “The Revisionist” – Harpers

Moody, Christian – “In the Middle of the Woods” – Cincinnati Review

Moody, Rick – “Story with Advice II…” – Mississippi Review

Morrissette, Micaela – “Ave Maria” – Conjunctions

Rogers, Bruce Holland – “The Seven Deadly Hotels” – Polyphony 7/Rogers Subscription Service

Richmond, Michelle – “Logorrhea” – Logorrhea

Rickert, Mary – “Memoir of a Deer Woman” – F&SF

Swirsky, Rachel – “How the World Became Quiet” – Electric Velocipede