Funds for Bookworm are provided in part by Lannin Foundation.

Boots!

Where would we be without books?

Where would we be without good?

No, Timberd.

It's a rhetorical question, sir.

But where would we be without books?

From KCRW and KCRW.com, I'm Michael Silverblatt. This is Bookworm, and today, my guest,

Jonathan Blum, whose book of short stories we're talking about today, the usual uncertainties. Well, he's one of

the very few people who first heard bookworm when he was attending Santa Monica College. From

Santa Monica College, he transferred to UCLA. From UCLA, he applied to and got admitted to

the University of Iowa writing program, probably then as now one of the very best in the country.

Among the people he worked with there were Marilyn Robinson, but they

offered an impressive staff of writers then as now. Maryland is just retired. Now, this book is

called The Usual Uncertainties.

It's 12 stories, and these are stories you've written over the last, how many years?

Just over 20.

20 years of stories.

So, and I know, that you teach writing in workshops around Los Angeles,

different kinds of workshops, story workshops, developing character workshops,

working on your novel workshops. So tell me, after this time, what is it that a short

story has to do? Well, short story seems to be a highly compressed literary form. They say it has to have a beginning, a middle, and an end,

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