This is the New Yorker Fiction Podcast from the New Yorker magazine.

I'm Deb Retricemon, fiction editor at The New Yorker.

Each month, we invite a writer to choose a story from the magazine's archives to read and discuss.

This month, we're going to hear Grace Paley's story.

My father addresses me on the facts of old age, which was published in The New Yorker in 2002.

The main thing is this, when you get up in the morning, you must take your heart in your two hands.

You must do this every morning.

That's a metaphor, right?

Metaphor? No, no, you can do this.

The story was chosen by Alan Gurgannis, who is the author of five books of fiction, including the novel Oldest Living Confederate Widow Tells All, and the Nevela Collection Local Souls.

Histories have been appearing in The New Yorker since 1974.

Hi, Alan.

Hi, Deborah. Good to hear you.

You too. You said that Grace Paley was your teacher, your writing teacher at one point.

Where and when was that?

It was about 1969 at Cyril Lawrence College.

I had just come off the USS Yorktown serving a mandatory draft stint in the US Navy during the war in Vietnam.

And of course, Grace had devoted most of her adult life to trying to end that war.

So it was a weird combination of acceptance and forgiveness.

She saw that I was trying to write and encouraged me and led me to Isaac Babel and check-off and all the people who've mattered most to me as writers.

And conducted an amazing class that wound me right into it.

So it was a huge transition from the Yorktown to Cyril Lawrence.

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