This short story collection won the Flannery O'Connor Award for Short Fiction. Ostlund lived in Albuquerque for seventeen years and is the former co-owner of Two Serious Ladies Asian Furniture located in Nob Hill. Because of the author's deep roots in Albuquerque, Ostlund has chosen Albuquerque and Bookworks as the launch event of The Bigness of the World.
The Bigness of the World includes five stories that take place overseas and six stories that take place 'at home.' In the eleven stories in The Bigness of the World we see that wherever you are in the world, where you came from is never far away.

Winners of the Flannery O'Connor Award for Short Fiction include such widely read authors as Ha Jin, Antonya Nelson, Rita Ciresi, and Mary Hood.