- "Afterlife" (1994)
- "The Shadow Catchers" (2002)
- "The Burning of the World" (2010)
- "The Last Days of the Sun" (2018)
Non-fiction
- "The Age of the Essay: A Critical History" (1995)
- "James Dickey and the Politics of Canon: Assessing the Savage Ideal in American Poetry" (2010)
- "The Life and Work of James Dickey: A Critical Biography" (2017)
Short stories
- "The River Between" (1993)
- "The Dead River" (1994)
- "The Night Train" (1995)
- "The House on the Hill" (1996)
- "The Red Tree" (1997)
Awards
- The Sewanee Review Fiction Prize (1993)
- The Nelson Algren Short Story Award (1994)
- The Pushcart Prize (1995, 1997)
- The National Book Award for Nonfiction (2017)