Carol Shields was the author of eight novels, including the bestselling Unless, and three collections of short stories. She received the Orange Prize for Larry’s Party and the Pulitzer Prize for The Stone Diaries. She died on July 16, 2003, after a protracted battle with cancer. In February, Fourth Estate will publish her Collected Stories, including her last story, "Segue," published here for the first time in the United States. The story appears here accompanied by a short introduction by Shields’s close friend Margaret Atwood.