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 Where You'll Find Me by Ann Bede,

which was published in the New Yorker in March of 1986.

What's wrong with me Howard says?

It's almost the first time he's looked at me since I arrived.

I've been trying not to register my board. I'm in my frustration with Kate's Prattle.

Maybe we should get a tree, I say.

I don't think it's Christmas that's making me feel this way Howard says.

The story was chosen by Greg Jackson, whose debut story collection prodigals was published in 2016.

Hi Greg.

Hi Deborah.

So you were once a student of Ann Bede's, right?

Yes, I was.

Where and when was that?

I was her student at the University of Virginia in 2011, 2012.

I had a workshop with her and she was then my thesis advisor.

And I chose her as my thesis advisor because she never liked any of my work.

And I thought, what better person to learn from?

I knew in some sense that she was right and that my work wasn't very good,

but I didn't really know why. And I thought if I just hung out with her for a really long time,

...