"The Toxic Donut," by Terry Bisson, was first published in the June 1993 issue of Science Fiction Age magazine. It was included later that year in the short story collection Bears Discover Fire and Other Stories. The story, which takes place in the future, consists of one long monologue, in which a television production assistant walks a guest through the rehearsal for an awards show later that night. However, unlike the recipients at other awards shows, who receive a gift of some sort, the special guest on this show must sacrifice her life by consuming all of humanity's toxic waste from the previous year—which has been condensed into a single, edible donut. Like many of his other works, "The Toxic Donut" combines both humor and social commentary. In this case, Bisson uses his strange depiction of a fictional future to comment on the environmental destruction of earth. The story was very timely, as it was written during the escalation of the environmental movement in the early 1990s, when many organizations and news media raised public awareness of the environment. A copy of the short story can be found in Bears Discover Fire and Other Stories, which was published by Tor Books in a paperback reprint edition in 1995.