Selected Shorts

By Selected Shorts

Arts Performing Arts

What's Selected Shorts about?

Spellbinding short stories by established and emerging writers take on a new life when they are performed by stars of the stage and screen.

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LAST EPISODE

I Do, I Do

08.06.2020

Guest host Jane Curtin presents two stories about marriage. A theatrical union is subtly tested in Bruce Jay Friedman’s “Any Number of Little Old Ladies,” performed by Blythe Danner and Maulik Pancholy. And love is stretched thin, but rebounds, in ...

Selected Shorts episodes:

08.06.2020 I Do, I Do Guest host Jane Curtin presents two stories about marriage. A theatrical union is subtly tested in Bruce Jay Friedman’s “Any Number of Little Old Ladies,” performed by Blythe Danner and Maulik Pancholy. And love is stretched thin, but rebounds, in ...
07.30.2020 Best Intentions Guest host Cynthia Nixon presents two stories in which people go overboard to demonstrate their devotion. In Robin Hemley’s “A Printer’s Tale,” a poet’s boyfriend hijacks a national magazine for her love--and one reader isn’t pleased. Reader Robert Sean Leonard ...
07.28.2020 Too Hot For Radio: Brit Bennett "Ain't That Good News" A story by the writer Brit Bennett, "Ain't That Good News" is tender, sad, and packs a wallop. You'll be completely hooked. Bennett's debut novel The Mothers made a splash in 2016 (soon to be a movie starring Kerry Washington), ...
07.23.2020 CHILD'S PLAY Guest host Hope Davis presents three uncanny stories featuring children. In Simon Rich’s hilarious “The Baby,” a novelist faces competition from his unborn son. Jason Mantzoukas is the reader. A children’s game takes a strange turn in Fiona McFarlane’s “Buttony,” ...
07.16.2020 Past and Future Guest host Maulik Pancholy presents a show about the past, the future, and how time flies. A young actor recalls critical moments in her childhood in Elizabeth Strout’s “Snow Blind,” read by Melora Hardin. Old schoolmates almost hook up in ...
07.09.2020 Journeys, Memories, and Miracles: Italian Short Stories Guest host Hope Davis presents a program of Italian short fiction selected by the novelist and short-story writer Jhumpa Lahiri. The stories were drawn from The Penguin Book of Italian Short Stories, which Lahiri edited. They range from the comic ...
07.02.2020 Celebrating Toni Morrison Guest host Tayari Jones helps us to celebrate this American master, who died in 2019. Her novels, including Beloved, Jazz and Song of Solomon, have become an indelible part of the American canon. Her fierce, poetic visions earned her the ...
06.29.2020 Too Hot For Radio: Mona Simpson "Wrong Object" Mona Simpson is the author of six books including Anywhere But Here, My Hollywood and Casebook. Her Too Hot For Radio story features a therapist, a patient, and one uniquely inappropriate relationship.This story was originally published in Harper’s and selected ...
06.25.2020 Shout it Out: The Stonewall Uprising at 50 Guest host Denis O’Hare helps us mark the landmark event that helped give birth to the modern movement for LGBTQIA+ rights in America. We first hear eyewitness accounts of the riots, drawn from The Stonewall Reader. Additional works include Perry ...
06.18.2020 ESCALATION Guest host Hope Davis presents two stories in which things get out of hand. Rumors and recriminations fly in “Belles Lettres,” by Nafissa Thompson-Spires, as rival mothers defend their daughters’ reputations at a posh school--at any cost. The readers are ...
06.11.2020 Not Your Mother’s Love Stories Guest host Dennis O’Hare presents two unorthodox love stories at a time when we could all use a little love. British writer Jane Gardam twists Hans Christian Andersen’s tale in a saucy reboot of “The Little Mermaid.” Her version, “The ...
05.31.2020 Too Hot For Radio: Stories by Elizabeth Crane and Michael Czyniejewski Our friend Michael Ian Black is back to host a twofer Too Hot For Radio episode. First up is actor K. Todd Freeman reading“Pregnant with Peanut Butter” by Michael Czyniejewski. Czyniejewski is the author of three story collections, including Our ...

Selected Shorts

What's Selected Shorts about?

Download our free app to listen on your phone

Selected Shorts episodes:

I Do, I Do

Best Intentions

Too Hot For Radio: Brit Bennett "Ain't That Good News"

CHILD'S PLAY

Past and Future

Journeys, Memories, and Miracles: Italian Short Stories

Celebrating Toni Morrison

Too Hot For Radio: Mona Simpson "Wrong Object"

Shout it Out: The Stonewall Uprising at 50

ESCALATION

Not Your Mother’s Love Stories

Too Hot For Radio: Stories by Elizabeth Crane and Michael Czyniejewski

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