You know that phrase, a force of nature?

On the next Selected Shorts, we've got four strong stories to blow you away.

From our gardens to our weather, the great outdoors tests and defines us.

I'm Meg Wallitzer.

Brave the elements and stay with me.

You're listening to Selected Shorts,

where our greatest actors transport us through the magic of fiction,

one short story at a time. Sometimes the setting of a story can matter as much as the characters, creating challenges for them, helping to define them, and giving the reader a visceral context for the narrative. On this program, we share four stories in which

nature has an impact. I am not someone who spends a lot of time in nature, and as a result, I don't

have too many nature metaphors to rely on when I write fiction. Instead, my fiction tends to include

nature's indoor parallel, by which I mean families in their native habitat gathering

around the dinner table or sitting on the grassy plains of the shag carpeting in the den.

But I do appreciate writers who make the actual natural world vivid and original, using

it in ways that amplify the emotional tension in a scene. Landscape can sometimes be the most memorable character of all.

Several of the stories on this program were part of a show we presented with

Cash Arts and Utah Public Radio, KUSU FM.

In the first, a comic duel between a woman and her garden.

In the second, a border crossing reveals outer and inner landscapes. In the third,

mastering one of the elements. And in the fourth, the upside of bad weather. Humorous Jenny Allen,

the author of the collection, Would Everybody Please Stop, Reflections on Life and Other Bad Ideas,

has mastered the art of disappointment. You name it,

boyfriends, tie-dye, slumber, she's tried it, it hasn't worked, and she wants to share her pain.

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