Every year in the United States the editors of hundreds of little magazines produce thousands of issues containing tens of thousands of stories, essays, and poems. Somewhere in this frightening abundance of reading matter is the very finest and the very worst that the writers of America have to offer. And there’s the rub—for although nobody, Lord knows, wants to miss out on this year’s “Waste Land,” it would be all but impossible for any one of us to poke through all those magazines to find it. That’s where The Pushcart Prize: Best of the Small Presses is supposed to come in. Issued yearly since 1976 by the Pushcart Press (with a well-distributed paperback version by Avon following hard upon), the series is intended, in the words of its founder-editor-publisher Bill Henderson, “to rescue some of the wonderful writing appearing in small presses from oblivion.”

The Pushcart Prize, VIII is the 1983-84 edition, which means that it contains pieces originally published during 1982, republished in the hardcover Pushcart Prize volume in 1983, and distributed in the Avon paperback edition in 1984. Gail Godwin, in her introduction, quotes Henderson’s words about rescuing wonderful writing from oblivion, and the back of the dustjacket quotes her quoting him. The front flap of the same jacket features a quotation from Publishers Weeklypraising the book’s “openness to new talent.” Henderson wants to make absolutely certain, obviously, that we get the message that his book is not just another best-of-the-year anthology—he wants us