These twelve short stories--Matthew J. Sullivan's winning story, "Unfound," and eleven finalists--show the range possible in the contemporary literary short story and offer a snapshot of some of the most compelling writing by established and emerging literary talents. From a pool of over five hundred stories, some published in very well-known journals and magazines, and many unpublished, our panel of readers selected these finalists, the best of the best, for the 2005 Robert Olen Butler Prize for a Short Story. Matthew J. Sullivan's winning story, "Unfound," was chosen from these...