* Hence (1992)
* The Friends of Freeland (1997)
* The Five-Way Sanitarium (2003)
* The Art Student's War (2008)
* Dean's List (2012)
Short story collections
* A Few Corrections (1991)
* The Paramedic's Wife (2002)
Poetry collections
* Hundreds of Fireflies (1983)
* Cats of the Temple (1986)
* Absent Without Leave (1989)
* The Mail from Anywhere (1993)
* The Clamdigger (2001)
Children's books
* The Zoo in My Room (1989)
* Big Little Sister (1991)
Non-fiction
* The Great American Short Story (1992)
* Between Heaven and Earth (1993)
* The Art of Fiction (2004)
Essays and articles
* "The Fiction Writer as Archivist" (1990)
* "The Trouble with Literature" (1991)
* "The Uses of Fiction" (1992)
* "The American Short Story: A Personal View" (1993)
* "The Art of Fiction" (2004)
Editor
* The Norton Anthology of Short Fiction (2001, 2006, 2010, 2014)
* The Norton Anthology of American Literature (2007)