Set on the field of play, or maybe just its memory, these stories of the sporting life range beyond the expected to include such pursuits as yoga, billiards, horse racing, cards, and boxing. Here, even iconic sports like football, basketball, and baseball get a fresh take through stories that might feature a losing coach, a woman hoopster, or a groundskeeper (rather than a star player). Whether front-and-center as a story's driving force or as a backdrop for other concerns, the skill, cunning, and aggression on display here are familiar to all of us - as players, willing or not, in all manner of contests.

Work, and the coffee-fueled day-to-day grind, is the shared concern of these stories, which have been chosen from among the hundreds that have appeared in the prestigious Flannery O'Connor Award for Short Fiction series. More than seventy volumes, which include approximately eight hundred stories, have won the Flannery O'Connor Award. This stunning trove of always engaging, often groundbreaking short fiction is the common source for this anthology on work-and for planned anthologies on such topics as family, gender and sexuality, animals, and more. Sometimes work is rewarding, and sometimes it's just demanding. From the cubicle to the courtroom, from the stage to the station. These fifteen stories reflect upon the time we dedicate to the jobs we do, from the moment we begin our commute to the second we return home, and every hardworking hour in between.

The ten stories in "Winter Money" are set in rural Kentucky and West Virginia, in dim horse racing and river towns. The men in Andy Plattner's stories are tough and uncertain, the women independent and disappointed, but they are strong-willed and high-spirited, always believing there's a better life, just over the horizon, after the next race.
The title story depicts the life of a jockey agent who has seen some bad breaks but knows in his heart he can turn things around if he can just get some "winter money" to make a fresh start in Florida. In "Chandelier," a bankrupt horse breeder risks everything again in an attempt to save a friend's farm. "Eldorado" is the story of a young horse groom convinced an old car will be good luck for him, even though it could break down over the next hill.
Life at a race track is as desperately unpredictable as the next race, but the people bound to this life live only when they are taking chances. The lies they tell themselves and others run with reality to create new truths. The men and women of "Winter Money" live in motel rooms that rent by the week, where strangers can change the course of lives. Love and compassion come from unexpected sources, and, as a result, dreams and desired are nurtured and sometimes, against the odds, sustained.