Meg Wolitzer speaks with author Judy Blume about her life, her writing and the challenges of book banning.

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Host Meg Wolitzer talks with political satirist and author Andy Borowitz in this bonus interview.

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From the author of Eileen and My Year of Rest and Relaxation, a story about weird people doing weird things. Read by Colby Minifie from The Boys, The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel and Fear the Walking Dead. Michael Ian Black hosts this episode, which includes an interview with Moshfegh.

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Host Meg Wolitzer presents three works about idealized lives, and ideas about what constitutes an “ideal” life.  “Boy Meets Girl” is Jen Kim’s humorous version of a Hollywood love story.  It’s read by Tony Hale.  In the John Cheever classic “The Worm in the Apple” a couple have the perfect life—but no one can believe it.  It’s read by Anne Meara.  And a harried mother fantasizes about a brand new life in Vanessa Cuti’s “Our Children,” performed by Claire Danes, followed by an interview with Danes.

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Host Meg Wolitzer talks with author Elizabeth Strout about her story “Home” and the fictional family Strout has created.

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In this bonus conversation, host Meg Wolitzer talks to author Louise Erdrich about her story; her writing life; and what do with left over index cards.

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In this bonus conversation, host Meg Wolitzer talks to actor Denis O’Hare about his craft, and his approaches to readings of the two very different stories on this program.

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Host Meg Wolitzer visits a favorite indie bookstore, Three Lives & Company in Greenwich Village, remembers her early years there as a writer and reader, and is let in on some trade secrets. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See https://pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

In this bonus conversation, writers Margaret Atwood and A.M. Homes discuss everything from feminism, time, writing and dystopian fiction, to Atwood’s new short story collection “Old Babes in the Wood.” The interview was recorded in front of a live audience at Symphony Space.

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In this bonus conversation, host and best-selling author, Meg Wolitzer, talks to host of WNYC’s All of It, Alison Stewart. Wolitzer reveals some of the secrets to great writing and the two share their own reading habits and thoughts about the importance of fiction.

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In this bonus conversation, host Meg Wolitzer talks to friend and New Yorker humorist Patricia Marx about her story “Singin’ in the Acid Rain,” and writing funny.

 

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In this bonus conversation, host Meg Wolitzer talks to friend and Booker Prize-winning author George Saunders about crafting short stories, where ideas come from, and how his work has evolved over the years.

 

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In this bonus conversation, host Meg Wolitzer talks to friend and Pulitzer Prize-winning author Elizabeth Strout about writing, short stories, and the use of recurring characters in her work.

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In this bonus conversation, host Meg Wolitzer talks to comedian and writer Michael Ian Black about what he’s been reading and the tricky business of being funny. 

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In this bonus conversation, host Meg Wolitzer talks to journalist, activist and feminist writer Mona Eltahawy about her life, literature and what it means to be a "dangerous woman."

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A bonus interview between our host and best-selling author, Meg Wolitzer, and the host of WNYC’s All of It, Alison Stewart. Wolitzer reveals some of the secrets to great writing and the two women share their own reading habits and thoughts about the importance of fiction.

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As part of our live event with Margaret Atwood, host A.M. Homes interviewed her from the stage at Symphony Space.  Here is that interview.

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The host of Selected Shorts, Meg Wolitzer launches the spin-off podcast, Tell Me More. If you know Selected Shorts you know that we're obsessed with stories. This new show will give us the chance to talk about many different kinds of stories—not just fiction! In the future, we'll talk to actors and journalists and, who knows, scientists, visual artists, even chefs. Creative people all tell stories of some kind, and this is our chance to look behind the scenes and find out how those stories get made.

On this episode, podcaster and author Kathryn Nicolai of Nothing Much Happens joins Meg. The title of her podcast tells you a lot of what you need to know. Her show is entirely fiction written and performed for occasional insomniacs who need something calming in their ear at night to help them fall asleep. In their conversation, they get into the power of sleep, and the power of stories, and they unpack a curious condition in which people literally cannot picture things in their minds.

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Meg Wolitzer sits down with her friend, writer Michael Cunningham. Michael is an American novelist, screenwriter, and educator. He is best known for his novel The Hours, which won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction and the PEN/Faulkner Award and was later adapted into an Oscar-winning film and opera. What happens when two writers get together? Well, of course, they talk about writing, specifically his story, “Jacked,” read by Jim Parsons, which we featured on Selected Shorts, but they also nerd out about the semicolon and Scrabble.

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Symphony Space was thrilled to host an evening with Israeli writer Etgar Keret, whose stories we’ve featured many times on Selected Shorts. He was interviewed by his longtime friend, and host of This American Life, Ira Glass. In this condensed version of their talk, they playfully challenge each other on a wide range of topics, some political, some creative, but mainly about what it’s like to live in these uncertain times.

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Written by Carmen Maria Machado, the dark, inventive and sensual writer behind the collection Her Body and Other Parties, and the memoir In the Dream House, this story, “Persephone Rides at the End of Days," was commissioned for the Selected Shorts anthology Small Odysseys. It's about a Greek goddess coming to terms with who and what she is. Is her name, meaning "bringer of death," her fate? Or will she channel the other side of her mythological self? Our reader is Cynthia Nixon, best known for her role on Sex & the City as well as its sequel, And Just Like That. She has also appeared in so many other television series, including The Gilded Age, and is big on Broadway. Aprana Nancherla hosts this episode.

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In this bonus feature, host Meg Wolitzer talks with actor Denis O’Hare about his craft, and his approaches to readings of the two very different stories on this program.

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This story is one from our archives, by Paul La Farge. Pay attention because the author delivers lots of little hints about what is happening behind the scenes—to the protagonist, and the peripheral characters, too. But it isn't clear until the very last moments of the story exactly what kind of a story we've been listening to. La Farge is the author of novels including Luminous Airplanes and The Night Ocean. He unfortunately died in 2023 when he was still in his early 50s; and while we never had the chance to host him on the show, he had a lot of friends in the literary world. Reading the story is actor and musician Josh Radnor. Radnor is best known for the series How I Met Your Mother, but he's always busy; recent credits include Fleishman Is in Trouble and Hunters. Aparna Nancherla hosts this episode.

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In this bonus feature, host Meg Wolitzer talks with author Louise Edrich about “The Big Cat,” her craft, and her Native American roots.

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Today's story is all about what happens when you become infatuated with someone you don't really know. And what strange or scary things you might do in order to make real contact with that person. The story is also about youth, love of language, and what you do with all your passion when you have more energy than you know what to do with.  This story is by Jonathan Lethem. He's a writer known for novels such as Motherless Brooklyn and The Fortress of Solitude, as well as short stories, recently collected in his book, A Different Kind of Tension. While he's amazing at crafting great narrative hooks, he's also quite good at recreating the awkward moments of young adulthood, as you'll hear in today's story, "The King of Sentences." The story is read by Brendan Hunt, the longtime writer and theater actor who is best known these days for the series Ted Lasso: Hunt helped to create it, write it, and on the show, he plays Coach Beard. Stay tuned after the story for a fascinating interview between Lethem and host Aparna Nancherla about creative influences, the power and peril of parasocial relationships, and more. 

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In a wide-ranging and fascinating discussion, the two authors sit down to discuss journalism, the #MeToo movement, the Supreme Court, and what it takes to tell a good story. Jodi Kantor is a best-selling author and prize-winning investigative reporter whose work reveals hidden truths about power, law, gender, technology and culture. She is the bestselling co-author of She Said, the book that details the story of decades of sexual abuse allegations against Harvey Weinstein. She specializes in stories on power, gender, and technology, including workplace investigations into Amazon and Starbucks, and recent coverage of the Supreme Court. 

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Host Meg Wolitzer presents four stories, recorded at the Getty Center in Los Angeles, in which characters shape their expectations and dreams to a manageable size.  So if you’re “Medusa,” as in our first story, by Tania James, you try to figure out how to live in the world instead of turning it to stone.  The reader is Constance Zimmer.  Parents in our second story, “We Only Wanted Their Happiness,” by Alexander Weinstein, make a tactical choice about technology.  It’s performed by Randall Park.  The narrator of Honor Levy’s “Good Boys,” read by Annie Hamilton, understands that infatuation is a phase.  And a man and a woman sidestep romance in “Arrangements” by Charlie Watts, performed by Laura Harrier and Will Harrison.  The program was created in cooperation with Belletrist, an online book club created by Emma Roberts and Karah Preiss.

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Host Meg Wolitzer presents three stories about social occasions for introverts and extroverts alike, curated with the Belletrist Book Club, founded by actor Emma Roberts and producer Karah Preiss, and recorded at the Getty Center in Los Angeles. Humorist Samantha Irby asks “Please Invite Me to Your Party,” but we’re not sure she means it. The reader is Richa Moorjani. Victoria Lancelotta’s “The Anniversary Trip,” performed by Judy Greer, is, and is not, about the married couple making the trip. And Jen Spyra takes to extremes what it takes to get to the altar in perfect shape in “The Bridal Body,” performed by Erinn Hayes.

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Host Meg Wolitzer presents two O. Henry Prize-winning stories, from the volume guest edited by Edward P. Jones.  The Prize was created in honor of the 19th-century writer best known for slyly humorous stories like “The Ransom of Red Chief” and “Gift of the Magi,” but contemporary selections range wide.  In “Rosaura at Dawn,” by Daniel Saldaña París, a woman searches for new life, and a new home.The reader is Sonia Manzano.  And “Countdown,” by Anthony Marra, is a darkly comic look at life in modern Russia.  The reader is Morgan Spector.

 

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Host Meg Wolitzer presents two unconventional love stories, one classic, one contemporary, that avoid the usual tropes of “meet cute,” “opposites attract,” or “happily ever after” but are still engaging.  In “Love in the Slump,” by Evelyn Waugh, clueless upper-crust newlyweds are sent on a comic odyssey.  The reader is Jane Kaczmarek.  And Esther Yi’s “Moon” explores something we often mistake for love—obsession--as a young woman is drawn farther and farther into K-Pop fandom. The story was selected by guest editor Min Jin Lee for Best American Short Stories 2023.  It’s read by Hettienne Park.  And we hear Lee’s and Park’s thoughts about the story.

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In the second of two programs created with the podcast Death, Sex, and Money and our live event host Anna Sale, we explore issues of happiness.  Host Meg Wolitzer introduces a satirical romance by Oscar Wilde (did he write any other kind?).  “The Model Millionaire” is read by Peter Francis James.  In Kevin Brockmeier’s “Space,” a grieving widower and his son try to get past their loss, looking for light in the darkness.  The reader is Michael Stuhlbarg.

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In the first of two programs created with the podcast Death, Sex, and Money and host Anna Sale, we explore issues of identity and connection.  In “Sacrament of Confession,” by Ernie Wang, a man struggles with a messy past that is affecting the present.  The reader is Richard Kind.  And in a touching do-over, a man meets his wife for the first time—again.Amy Ryan reads Seth Fried’s “You Again.”

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In this program, created in collaboration with Waterwell and the New York Immigration Coalition, guest host Arian Moayed takes listeners through a live performance of thirteen stories and one song that vividly bring to life the vital role immigrants play in New York City's past, present and future. Here are their names:  Mary Twomey, Sara M., Zead Ramadan and Andy Eng, Mónica Carrillo, Sabelo Narasimhan, Sadie Frowne, Gulnahar Alam, Fred Amram, Mohmoud Widdi, Tien “Johnny” Nghe, and Kofi, and Hassan Iqbal.

Readers include Moayed, and, in order of content, Jayne Houdyshell, Roberta Colindrez, Simu Liu, Pej Vahdat, Camila Cano-Flavia, Sunita Mani, Micaela Diamond, Sepideh Moafi, Kathryn Grody, Laith Nakli, Tramell Tillman, and Justin H. Min.  Near the middle of the program, a Korean folksong, “New Arirang,” is performed by Ruthie Ann Miles.

Listeners should note that Gulnahar Alam’s moving story, which begins at 36:56, includes a brief description of domestic abuse near the beginning of her narration.

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Host Meg Wolitzer presents the Health vs Hype podcast. It's a show from the American Medical Association and helps you make smarter, more informed decisions about your health, without the fear-mongering or confusion. We hope you enjoy it as much as we do!

Host Meg Wolitzer presents three works from an evening with New Yorker author and cartoonist Roz Chast, inspired by Chast’s book I Must be Dreaming.  “The Wife on Ambien,” by Ed Park, is a sort of late-night fever dream.  It’s read by John Fugelsang.  In Tessa Hadley’s “Bad Dreams,” images than begin in dreams envelop a family in real life.The reader is Rita Wolf.  Tom Barbash’s “Stay Up With Me” charts the rocky path of an old love affair.  It’s read by Jason Ralph.  And stay tuned for Chast’s own weird dream life, some of which she shares in this episode.

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