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

I'm Deborah 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 not one but two stories,

love by Grace Paley and The Wretched 70s by Barry Hanna.

Ned Maxie hid Stairdott a window weeping, fasting and praying in his way.

The character of both the drunkard and the penitent,

he had watched life across the street.

The stories this month were chosen by George Saunders,

whose own stories have been appearing in the magazine since 1992.

His latest collection, 10th of December, is now out in paperback.

Welcome back to the podcast, George.

Nice to be here, Deborah. Thanks for having me.

Yeah, now last time that you were on the program, seven years ago,

you read an Isaac Bobble story called You Must Know Everything.

This time you're reading these two very short, more recent stories by Grace Paley and Barry Hanna.

Grace Paley's stories from 1979, Barry Hanna's from 1996.

Why these two pieces and why talk about them together?

We're at the beginning of a semester up here at Syracuse.

And I always like to kind of almost like reboot my whole understanding of a story form.

Like just forget everything I was thinking last year and start fresh.

And so one way to do that is just to start with a simple, short, one-page example.

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