Both Weiland and Wilsey decided that they wanted a mixture of approaches for the collection; while several well-known authors (e.g., Ha Jin, Jhumpa Lahiri, Dave Eggers) were included, they deliberately avoided certain authors that were closely associated with a particular state - for instance, Garrison Keillor with Minnesota, or Carl Hiaasen with Florida.

"I mean no dishonor to any of the writers to say that we worked very closely with them all to revise as much as possible, to make every piece as lasting and solid and convincing as possible," Weiland told Bookslut.

And to Sean, likewise, that means a lot to him—he did it at The New Yorker and continues to do it for McSweeney's....I think [the writers] saw very quickly we wanted to make a book that would still be read decades from now...and that meant...not even taking their A-minus work, but pushing them for their absolute best."

Wilsey was invited to attend an event after donating his portion of the advance for the book to Obama's campaign.

It was one of four tomes he was considering; the others were "[Charles] Bock's Beautiful Children, [Joshua] Ferris' Then We Came to the End, and Brock Clarke's An Arsonist's Guide to Writers' Homes in New England.

Professor Tyler Cowen, on the site Marginal Revolution: Small Steps to a Much Better World, noted that he was thinking of assigning State by State to his graduate students at Berlin's Freie Universität along with Alexis de Tocqueville's Democracy in America.

"I wasn't sure what high school students would make of it, but we were careful to select the pieces with the most drinking and the most sex," Weiland told Bookslut.

"[1] To The New York Observer the anthology was also greater than its parts, heralding "a sign of progress, a ray of hope.

"[2] Among multiple other positive reviews included The Los Angeles Times, lauding "an antidote to the oversimplifying red state/blue state rubric"; The Denver Post, which enthused "a euphoric collection"; and PopMatters, which commended the matching of writer to state.

"Life is easier" in Georgia, Mississippi is home to "smart, gentle talented gals and pals," Wisconsinites have an unshakable kindness.

Montana is surprisingly literary (Vowell: "all Montanans" have in common "a love of William Shakespeare.")

California is place of enviable freedom, where residents can duck hunt and hike on their own terms (Vollmann).