Book excerpt: Dagoberto Gilb is an acknowledged master of the short story, the winner of the PEN/Hemingway Award, and a PEN/Faulkner finalist for his debut collection, The Magic of Blood, and was awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship for his fiction writing. His critically acclaimed collection Woodcuts of Women is now available in paperback and features ten moving and heartbreaking stories of lust, love, and longing among men and women struggling to find their way in the world. Written in Gilb's spare, humid language, each of these haunting stories is crafted with a poetic, aching beauty. At turns powerful and resonant, hopeful and humorous, Woodcuts of Women is a tour de force by one of America's foremost Latino writers. "The sheer intensity and bravado of [Gilb's] vision make this collection succeed." -- Jean Thompson, The New York Times Book Review "Lonely, tough stories -- stories that force us to confront what's difficult in us, and in the people we love." -- Adrienne Miller, Esquire "Gilb's stories read like verbal woodcuts deliberately unrefined and carefully unadorned, clear in their intent but without undue elaboration...." -- Sean Glennon, The Hartford Courant "...Gilb writes of the gritty passions of man for women, grand delusions and tender mercies...." -- Oscar C. Villalon, San Francisco Chronicle