The Best American Short Stories 2009, a volume in The Best American Short Stories series, was edited by Heidi Pitlor and by guest editor Alice Sebold.[1]
| Author | Story | Where story previously appeared |
| Daniel Alarcón | "The Idiot President" | The New Yorker |
| Sarah Shun-Lien Bynum | "Yurt" | The New Yorker |
| Steve De Jarnatt | "Rubiaux Rising" | Santa Monica Review |
| Joseph Epstein | "Beyond the Pale" | Commentary |
| Alice Fulton | "A Shadow Table" | Tin House |
| Karl Taro Greenfeld | "NowTrends" | American Short Fiction |
| Eleanor Henderson | "The Farms" | Agni |
| Greg Hrbek | "Sagittarius" | Black Warrior Review |
| Adam Johnson | "Hurricanes Anonymous" | Tin House |
| Victoria Lancelotta | "The Anniversary Trip" | The Gettysburg Review |
| Yiyun Li | "A Man Like Him" | The New Yorker |
| Rebecca Makkai | "The Briefcase" | New England Review |
| Jill McCorkle | "Magic Words" | Narrative Magazine |
| Kevin Moffett | "One Dog Year" | Tin House |
| Richard Powers | "Modulation" | Conjunctions |
| Annie Proulx | "Them Old Cowboy Songs" | The New Yorker |
| Ron Rash | "Into the Gorge" | The Southern Review |
| Alex Rose | "Ostracon" | Ploughshares |
| Ethan Rutherford | "The Peripatetic Coffin" | American Short Fiction |
| Namwali Serpell | "Muzungu" | Callaloo |