The Tomb of Wrestling is a short story by Jo Ann Beard collected as the opening piece in The O. Henry Prize Stories 2018. It quietly traces memory, the body, and the tensions of intimate connection, drawing a sense of loss and attachment from the details of personal experience.

Where body and memory meet, the pain and intimacy of connection quietly take shape.

Counterblast is a short story by Marjorie Celona collected in The O. Henry Prize Stories 2018. Following a narrator traveling with a young child, it sharply renders exhaustion, bodily awareness, and strains within family life, turning everyday disorder into a portrait of inward resistance.

Amid the confusion of travel and childcare, the narrator's accumulated resistance begins to find a voice.