This inaugural anthology of PEN America's selection of literature's most promising new voices is "a welcome addition to the run of established short story annuals, promising good work to come" (Kirkus Reviews). Launched alongside PEN's new Robert J. Dau Short Story Prize for Emerging Writers, it recognizes a dozen writers who have had outstanding fiction debuts in a print or online literary magazine—stories that take place in South Carolina and in South Korea, on a farm in the 18th century and among the cubicles of a computer engineering firm in the present day—with age-old yet current themes like migration, memory, technology, language, love, ecology, identity, and family. Each is presented with an introduction by the editor who originally published it, providing insight into a process that often remains opaque to readers and students of writing, and illuminating the vital work of literary magazines to nurture these new writers.