Selected Shorts

Meg Wolitzer presents two stories about the things she loves most: books and words and why they matter. In Ben Loory’s “The Book,” a contrarian volume becomes a literary sensation, and alters one woman’s life. The reader is Jane Kaczmarek. In “Things I Know to be True” by Kendra Fortmeyer, originally published in One Story, a damaged veteran uses words to hold his life together. The reader is Calvin Leon Smith. And in a special fea...

Host Meg Wolitzer presents a quartet of summer stories.  Umberto Eco endures trial by mini bar in “How to Travel with a Salmon,” read by Jin Hah.  A scenic getaway turns eerie in Elizabeth Spencer’s “The Weekend Travelers,” read by Campbell Scott.  Life looks up—way up—for an overworked restaurant owner in “The Man, The Restaurant, and the Eiffel Tower,” by Ben Loory, read by Stana Katic.  And upper-class “frenemies” have a reckoni...

Meg Wolitzer presents stories that take the idea of “the magic of fiction” literally—or literarily. The British writer Penelope Lively offers up a tricky combination of love and real estate in “The Third Wife,” performed by real-life husband and wife Patricia Kalember and Daniel Gerroll. The only “trick” in our next story, “Tempo,” by R.O. Kwon, is the trick the mind plays when it wishes the present would restore a lost bit of the ...

Meg Wolitzer presents four works that consider various forms of risk, and risk taking.  In “Clicking on Heaven’s Door,” by Anand Giridharadas, performed by Negin Farsad, the pearly gates require an online account, a password, a security question…you get the idea.  “The Stand-In,” by Gerald Jones and Jean Marple, imagines a unique job. It’s read by Tony Hale.  David Sedaris creates the ultimate in well-meant interference in other pe...

Meg Wolitzer presents stories by the incomparable Margaret Atwood, drawn from SELECTED SHORTS’ archives and a live performance evening hosted by the author. “There Was Once” is a brief satire about the art of writing and the importance of free speech. It’s performed by René Auberjonois, Zach Grenier, and Jane Kaczmarek. “Widows,” performed by Ellen Burstyn, is a delicate and ironic tale in which a recently widowed woman becomes acc...

Host Meg Wolitzer presents three works that reflect on the allure—or not—of summer.  In Massimo Bontempelli’s “The Miraculous Beach or, Prize for Modesty,” translated by Jenny McPhee, a hot summer in Rome produces a magical moment.  The reader is Hugh Dancy.  Essayist and humorist Samantha Irby could do without summer, thank you, and makes “A Case for Remaining in Doors”, performed by Retta.  And Denis O’Hare reads a baseball class...

Rachel B. Glaser has been recognized as one of Granta Magazine's Best Young American Novelists, and her work has been showcased in prestigious publications such as The Paris Review and McSweeney's. "Ira & the Whale" was honored with an O. Henry Prize in 2023. Jeff Hiller is an actor who has been a charming anchor of the HBO series Somebody Somewhere. He's appeared in many other funny shows, such as 30 Rock; was on Broadway in the m...

"The Ballad of Bagel Rat," is by Jen Spyra. She's written for The Onion, The New Yorker, and The Late Show with Stephen Colbert. After reading her short story collection Big Time, we not only brought two of Spyra's stories to the stage, but commissioned this one, too. Actor Busy Phillips read this story onstage. She's been in shows from Freaks & Geeks to Cougar Town, though these days you may know her from Girls5Eva or the movie mu...

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 Childre...