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

I'm Debra Treesman, 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 two pieces by Jamaica King Cade,

one called Girl and the other called Wingless.

Perhaps I stand on the brink of a great discovery,

and perhaps after I've made my great discovery,

I will be sent home in chains.

They were chosen by Ed Weach Dantakoud, whose fiction and essays have been appearing in the New Yorker since 1999.

Her novels include Breath Eyes Memory and the Doobbreaker.

Her new book, Claire of the Sea Light, will be out in August.

Ed Weach joins us from the studios of WLRN in Miami.

Hi, Ed Weach.

Hi, Debra.

Now, when did you first read Jamaica King Cade's work?

Do you remember what effect it had on you at the time?

Yeah, I read her in college.

She was coming to our campus, and it feels like this was a first real writer I had seen in person.

I can't be 100% sure, but I just remember her coming to the campus.

And every time I go on a campus, now I have this sort of as my vision of what people were expecting of me,

because I was so blown away by her.

You have to live up to that now.

...