• ASPCA Henry Bergh Children’s Book Award for Saying Goodbye to Lulu.
• Finalist, Massachusetts Book Award, The Disappearing Island.
• PEN Syndicated Fiction Competition winner.
• Lawrence Foundation Prize for the best story to appear in Michigan Quarterly Review.
• Breakthrough Contest winner, University of Missouri Press.
• National Endowment for the Arts Creative Writing Fellowships.
• Andrew W. Mellon Foundation Fellowship.

Books

• The Writing Circle (novel), Hyperion/Voice, July 2010
• The Donkeys Postpone Gratification (poetry collection), Finishing Line Press, 2009.
• Great American Short Stories: From Hawthorne to Hemingway (Editor), Barnes & Noble Classics Series, 2004.
• Eleven Stories High: Growing Up in Stuyvesant Town, 1948...1968 (memoir), State University of New York Press, 2000. Paperback,2002.
• What We Save for Last (short story collection), Milkweed Editions, 1992.
• Daffodils or the Death of Love (short story collection), University of Missouri Press, 1983.
• The Same River Twice (novel), Athenaeum, 1982.

Children's books

• Always in Trouble (picture book, illustrated by Noah Z. Jones), Scholastic, Spring 2009.
• Valentine Surprise (picture book, illustrated by R. W. Alley), Walker & Company, Winter 2008.
• Yuck! Stuck in the Muck (leveled reader, illustrated by Laura Rader), Scholastic, Spring 2006.
• Two Christmas Mice , Holiday House (picture book, illustrated by Stephanie Roth), Fall, 2005.
• Saying Goodbye to Lulu , (picture book, illustrated by Ard Hoyt), Little, Brown, 2004.
• The Magic Apple (retelling of a Jewish folktale, illustrated by Alexi Natchev), Golden Books, 2002. Random House, 2004.
• The Boy Who was Generous With Salt, (picture book, illustrated by Michael Hays), Cavendish Children's Books, Marshall Cavendish, 2002.
• The Perfect Pony (leveled reader), Random House, 2000.
• Nina's Waltz (picture book, illustrated by Deborah Lanino), Orchard Books, 2000.
• If Ever I Return Again (middle-grade novel), HarperCollins, 2000.

French edition, Si Je Reviens, Bayard Jeunesse, 2002.

• The Disappearing Island (picture book, illustrated by Ted Lewin), Simon & Schuster, 2000.
• Hurricane! (picture book), Cavendish Children's Books, Marshall Cavendish, 2000.
• The Littlest Matryoshka (picture book, illustrated by Kathryn Brown), Hyperion Books for Children, 1999.
• Snow Day (sequel to The Shortest Kid in the World, illustrated by Nancy Poydar), Random House, 1998.
• Electra and the Charlotte Russe (picture book, illustrated by Michael Garland), Boyds Mills Press, 1997.
• The Shortest Kid in the World (leveled reader, illustrated by Nancy Poydar), Random House, 1995.
• Matthew's Meadow (environmental fable, illustrated by Ted Lewin), Harcourt Brace, 1992. Voyager Books (paperback), 1997.

Adapted for stage by the Regional Touring Theatre Company of Western Illinois University (produced Spring, 1994).

• That Dog Melly! (picture book, illustrated by the author), Hastings House,1981.

Short stories

• "Last Stars," Notre Dame Review, No. 22 (Summer, 2006).
• "After the Abernathys," The Women’s Times, Vol. 7, No. 4 (August, 2005).
• "In Memory of a Lovely Afternoon," The Kenyon Review, Vol. XXII, Nos. 3/4 (Summer, Fall, 2000).
• "The Village," Notre Dame Review, No. 2 (Summer, 1996).
• "Mirrors," American Literary Review, Vol. VI, No.1 (Spring, 1995).
• "Certain Treacheries," Harvard Review, No. 3 (Winter, 1993).
• "Learning Greek," The Southern Review, Vol.28, No.3 (July, 1992).
• "In the Perfect Privacy of His Own Mind," Glimmer Train, Issue No. 2 (Spring, 1992).
• "Luba By Night," Fiction, Vol. 10, Nos. 1 & 2 (Spring, 1991).
• "Swimming to Albania," Shenandoah, Vol. 41, No. 1 (Spring, 1991).
• "The Other Side," The Agni Review, 28, (Spring, 1989).
• "Small Sins," Columbia, Vol. 14, No. 4 (February-March, 1989).
• "Birthday Card." Special Report: Fiction, (February-April,1989).
• "Forbidden Waters," The Virginia Quarterly Review, Vol. 64, (Winter 1988).
• "Breaking Trail," The Providence Journal Sunday Magazine, (December 15, 1988).
• "Babylove," The Agni Review , 24/25 (Fall, 1987).Reprinted in Birth, A Literary Companion, edited by Kristin Kovacic and Lynne Barrett , University of Iowa Press. Fall, 2002.
• "The Dream Broker," Redbook, (July, 1987).
• "The Cutting Edge of the Snow," O. Henry Festival Stories, 1987
• "Memorial Day," (PEN Syndicated Fiction Competition winner) San Francisco Chronicle (May 24, 1987); St. Petersburg Times (May 30, 1987); Kansas City Star (June 12, 1988). Produced by National Public Radio for NPR Playhouse: The Sound of Writing II.
• "What We Save for Last" The Providence Journal Sunday Magazine, January 3, 1987, New England Living, December, 1990.
• "Payment" (originally titled "Reparations") McCall's, (August, 1986).
• "Headlines," Michigan Quarterly Review, Vol. XXIV, No. 3 (Summer, 1985). (winner of the Lawrence Foundation Prize.)
• "American Authors Incorporated," Fiction Monthly, Vol. 2, No. 10 (Summer, 1985).
• "Separate Lives," The Agni Review, 22 (Spring, 1985).
• "Among the Lettuce," Cutbank 23, (Spring, 1985).
• "Ears," The Boston Review, Vol. IX, No. 5 (October, 1984).
• "Margaret, Are You Grieving?," Mademoiselle, (April, 1984).
• "Consuming Passion," (originally titled "Pizza") Mademoiselle, (February,1984).
• "Third Street," The Boston Globe Magazine, (December 6, 1981).
• "Lester Schwabb I, II, III, IV, V," Ploughshares Special Fiction Issue, (Fall, 1980).
• "Roommates," (originally titled "Peter Rabbit") Esquire, Vol. 93, No. 4 (April, 1980).
• "Light Boat," The Madison Review, Vol. 1, No. 1 (Spring, 1979).
• "Mt. Kisco," The Old Red Kimona, Vol. VII (Spring, 1979).
• "Secrets," Secrets and Other Stories by Women, Gallimaufry 14, 1979.
• "Horse Throws Rider in Field," Newsart, The New York Smith, Vol. 2, No. 5 (August, 1978).
• "Daffodils or the Death of Love," The Agni Review, 9 (Fall, 1978).
• "Rings," The Ohio Review, Vol. XVIII, No. 3 (Fall, 1977).
• "McCaferty and Sons," Tales, Vol. 3, No. 1 (Fall, 1976).
• "Mr. Lundy," Kansas Quarterly, Vol. 8, Nos. 3-4 (Summer-Fall, 1976).
• "Slow Moose," Transatlantic Review, Nos. 53/54 (February, 1976).
• "Traveling During Pregnancy," The Little Magazine, Vol. 8, Nos. 3-4 (Fall-Winter, 1975—76).
• "Fly," Women Becoming, Vol. 2, No. 1 (February, 1974).
• "Holy Grail," Fragments, Vol. XIV, No. 1 (1973).
• "Winter-Tight Lodgings," Southern Humanities Review, Vol. 7, No. 4 (Fall,1973).

Selected Non-fiction

• “Our Town,” Op-Ed, The New York Times, Sunday, September 3, 2006.
• Letter to the Editor, response to "The Upscaling of Stuyvesant Town," The New York Times, February 18, 2001.
• "An Accidental Utopia", The New York Times, Sunday, November 19, 2000.
• Review of The Tales of Arturo Vivante, Harvard Review, Premier Issue (Spring, 1992).
• "Coyotes," Columbia (Summer 1990).
• "Against the Current: A Conversation with Anita Desai," The Massachusetts Review, Vol. XXIX, No. 3 (Fall, 1988). Reprinted in Anita Desai: Critical Perspectives , edited by Devindra Kohli and Melanie Maria Just, Pencraft International, 2008.

Poetry

• "Smalls," New England Watershed Magazine, June/July 2006.
• "To You There in Dayton" and "Diaphragm Poem," Images, Vol. 4, No. 1 (Fall, 1977).
• "Pact," Poetry &, Vol. 2, No. 1 (July-August, 1977).
• "Blue Hole," Poetry &, Vol. 1, No. 11 (June, 1977).

Plays

• Blue Straw Hat (2009)