Save the date, rent a gown, buy a tasteful gift.

When that big night rolls around, some people find all that activity to be a lot of fun,

but what about the rest of us who'd rather eat popcorn and play wordle on the couch in our pajamas?

I'm Meg Wallitzer, and on this Selected Shorts, something for social butterflies and introverts alike.

Don't go anywhere.

You're listening to Selected Shorts, where our greatest actors transport us through the magic of fiction, one short story at a time.

Save the Date. Three little words arriving most often in your email inbox or physical mailbox on a four-by-six piece of semi-gloss cardstock.

That's it. Save the date. Plan ahead, make some space, because someone you know in love is getting married, celebrating an anniversary, or hosting another sort of

unmissable happening invitation to follow. Simple. Of course, that postcard and those three

little words can inspire very different reactions depending on the recipient.

Many of us receive them with joy and delight. We send our tuxes to the cleaners and begin

plotting how we might coerce the DJ to play Purple Rain for the final song of the night.

Others, well, not so much. More on this in a minute. Now, we had selected shorts recently hosted an event,

a save-the-date kind of occasion, that left us with the afterglow that comes after a successful

suiée. Each year, we bring our show from New York to the beautiful Getty Center in Los Angeles.

Already amazing. Our most recent visit, however, was even more exciting as we worked with a new partner,

the Bellatrist Book Club.

For those who don't know it, well, first, Belatrist is a French word for a writer whose

work is beautiful or artistic rather than, say, academic.

The Bellatrist Book Club is the vibrant online community built by two longtime friends,

actor Emma Roberts and producer Kara Price.

As bookworms, they regularly shared recommendations and wanted to expand their circle

...