Against the darkness of American short fiction - a few writers who are different

Friend WS had asked for suggestions of uplifting fiction that was not schlock or schmaltz, and as noted in previous posts the list is short - and the list would most definitely not include Sherwood Andeson's Winesburg, Ohio, with its steady drumbeat, story after story (25 in all I think) of lost souls, lonely people, broken hearts, embittered personalities, early deaths, violence and alcoholism - all in this one little Ohio town. It's a pretty fine collection but the problem is it's all in the same key, in fact its the same tune over and over again, relentless. Very impressive when I was younger, less so today, as I see more clearly that Anderson's portrayal of the dark heart of his home town is in its way as false and distorted a picture as a postcard of sunset over cornfields. As noted yesterday, the American short story is native ground for versions of loneliness, but in responding to WS's inquiry I did think of several (American) short-story writers whose work is in some ways and in general upbeat and positive, stories of assimilation rather than alienation, serious stories that also use humor effectively, among them Charles Baxter's Gryphon, Jhumpa Lahiriri's Interpreter of Maladies, Ann Beattie's New Yorker Stories, Lorrie Moore's Birds of America, and Antonya Nelson (not sure which collection to recommend, have mostly read her in the NYer). These writers to a degree go against the grain of modern American short fiction, which is often unrelentlessly dark and often satiric - but each has a distinct voice and a serious take on the world, and a serious commitment to short fiction as well (Baxter the only one on this short list who may be primarily a novelist).