Fiction. Poetry. This anthology features a special portfolio edited by Bradford Morrow and Jonathan Safran Foer which explores laughter that comes from the darkest part of our hearts. This section includes narratives of black comedy,gothic satire and violent burlesque by Robert Coover, Joyce Carol Oates, Rick Moody, Dale Peck, Rikki Ducornet, Paul West, Diane Williams, Ben Marcus, Paul Maliszewski, Lynne Tillman, Jonathan Ames, Gilbert Sorrentino, Valerie Martin, Alexander Theroux, Elisabeth Cohen, Rebecca Brown and George Saunders. The issue also contains new fiction and poetry by Homero Aridjis, Noy Holland, Mark McMorris, Sally Keith, Can Xue, Elizabeth Robinson, Sandra Meek, Michael Coffey and Sarah Rothenberg, along with a complete novella by William H. Gass.

Bradford Morrow (born 1951) is an American novelist, poet, writer, academic and editor of Conjunctions literary magazine. Born in Baltimore, Maryland, Morrow grew up in Colorado, and, "after a decade of vagabonding from Honduras to France, Italy to England", settled in New York City, where he remains. Conjunctions magazine was hatched in late 1980 as "Morrow sat in Beat poet Kenneth Rexroth's library in Santa Barbara, California. The two friends had the idea to assemble a Festschrift for James Laughlin, the beloved editor of New Directions." After going through several publishers, the magazine was picked up by Bard College in Annandale-on-Hudson, New York who remains the journal's publisher. Morrow was later Rexroth's literary executor. He has taught at Princeton, Brown, and Columbia Universities, as well as the Naropa Institute. Since 1990 he has been a professor of literature and Bard Center Fellow at Bard College. The Review of Contemporary Fiction published a "Bradford Morrow issue" in 2000.