Attracting an editor's attention : PEN/O.Henry Prize Stories 2010

First I've seen of a story from Jess Row - Sheep May Safely Graze (nice title, several references to serious music in this story) in the "PEN/O.Henry Prize Stories 2010" collection edited by Laura Furman, and so why did she select this story? Aside from its startling opening (death of a young girl in boating accident), always important in attracting the attention of an editor overwhelmed by thousands of dull, mediocre submissions, many with long atmospheric openings or desert-like stretches of flat dialogue - and its thoughtful account of life among the upper-bureaucracy of D.C. (not often captured in fiction), it is, like the first four selections in this edition, it covers a long span of time rather than a single moment/day/episode - though Row's story is a little more focused on a single episode and its aftermath, how the death affects the girl's father, the narrator, and pushes him nearly to the brink of a heinous and ill-conceived revenge attack. Row's narrator is a much older man looking back on the events of his youth (the 'nanny' narrator of an earlier story in the collection by K.Allio is also older looking back), which I think is a great way for a writer to modulate some of the emotions of the events of a short story, to offer both episode and reflection but still from a single POV which may or may not offer the most clear-sighted perspective on the events of the story. Looking ahead, I notice that the next story in the edition is very long - all of the stories so far tip toward the lengthy, though not quite novella-length. Is that a requisite for Prize Story selection? Sometimes less is more.