The version of my short story that appears in the O. Henry Prize Stories 2008 is not the version I submitted to them, nor is it the version that was selected for the prize after it appeared in The Threepenny Review. It’s a draft I wrote four years ago. How did they get a hold of it? I’m not sure. I never sent it to them (they’ve confirmed this) and it’s never been published anywhere other than in Threepenny. The only copy of this unfinished version I know about was on the Stanford Creative Writing program’s website, where it was posted after it won the undergraduate fiction prize in 2004, and it’s since been removed. That’s the version that appears in the O. Henry anthology.

Yes, I’m annoyed. It’s tough not to sound like an ungrateful hairsplitter (I still got published, I still won something, right?), but an unfinished version of my writing is out there with my name on it, and right now there’s no way for Any Ol’ Reader to know that.

Still very grateful; still not happy about it. I’m working on an agreement with the publishers.

Update: They’re posted errata to the website, along with the finalized version of the story, and that’s that.