Christmas stories from N.C. writers

New stories from seven of North Carolina's best fiction writers star in Our State magazine's December issue.

This is the first time Our State, the magazine of N.C. culture, food and travel, has produced a Christmas fiction issue. And it's an all-star author lineup -- Allan Gurganus, Jill McCorkle, Clyde Edgerton, Margaret Maron, Ron Rash, Elizabeth Spencer and Daniel Wallace.

If you've read these authors, you'll notice some familiar settings. Edgerton's story takes place in fictional Listre, North Carolina. In Rash's piece, a veterinarian heads out under a starry night sky in Madison County to attend to "a calf that ain't of a mind to get born."

McCorkle's story, "Holiday," unfolds at Pine Haven Estates, a retirement village and assisted living in the fictional N.C. town of Fulton. It's adapted from her forthcoming novel, "Life After Life," out in March.

Want to read more from these authors? Check out Our State's handy reading list.