This definitive collection of the best short stories from the sixth annual Great American Fiction Contest continues The Saturday Evening Post's mission to support the legacy of the storyteller.

The Algonquin Round Table, also called The Round Table, was an informal group of American literary men and women who met daily for lunch on weekdays at a large round table in the Algonquin Hotel in New York City during the 1920s and ’30s.

From the age of seven, Donna Baier Stein wanted to be a writer. Perhaps not coincidentally, it was at this same age that she first learned about the sensational and tragic life of Baby Doe Tabor, one of the most scandalous women in Colorado’s history, its 1880s “silver queen” and for a while the “best-dressed woman in the West.”

Donna wins Colorado Independent Publishers Award, 2nd Place Historical Fiction

Donna wins Will Rogers Medallion Award, 3rd Place, Western Romance, The Silver Baron’s Wife

Gargoyle Magazine published Donna Baier Stein’s short story, “Prodigal Son”

I want to take the opportunity to welcome Donna Baier Stein, author of The Silver Baron’s Wife, to The Maiden’s Court today.

Many characters in the book deal with unexpected changes in their lives and would welcome facts to guide them. The title seemed to reflect the emotional struggles of the characters and almost implies that it’s simple to change a life. But my characters find that life is complex; what works for one person will not work for another.

Colorado’s Baby Doe Tabor was a fiercely independent woman who bucked all her era’s social expectations. In 1866, 12-year-old Lizzie McCourt watched a fire consume her father’s tailoring business and home in Oshkosh, Wisconsin. Vowing to rebuild her family’s fortune, she later married Harvey Doe, the mayor’s son, and followed him and her father-in-law to Colorado, where Harvey Doe, Sr., had gifted them a mine called The Fourth of July.