Although Breece D'J Pancake wrote relatively few short stories, he is regarded by many as a master of the form. Except for pieces in student literary magazines, Pancake published only three stories during his short life; three additional pieces appeared in periodicals shortly after his death. The Stories of Breece D'J Pancake (1983) includes these six previously published stories along with six others. The thin volume was reviewed (almost always favorably) in over one hundred journals and newspapers and was nominated for a Pulitzer Prize. Joyce Carol Oates (writing in the New York Times Book Review, 13 February 1983) compared Pancake's work to that of Ernest Hemingway; Harold Jaffe (Newsday , 6 March 1983) noted similarities with Flannery O'Connor; and Jayne Ann Phillips (quoted on the dust jacket) described the collected stories as an Appalachian equivalent to James Joyce's Dubliners (1906).

Pancake was born on 29 June 1952 in Milton, West Virginia, and his name at birth...