On this selected short, we take flight with novelist Amy Tan, who shares stories about birds real and fantastical, a fable about

friendship, a spooky tale of teens and transition, and a bird song that goes viral.

I'm your host Meg Walitzer.

Don't fly away.

You're listening to selected shorts where our greatest actors transport us through the

magic of fiction, one short story at a time. Birds, they're all around us, in the sky on the ground,

birds, they're all around us,

in the sky on the ground, in our gardens, our parks, majestic like

eagles, diminutive like wrens, comical like boobies. And they are everywhere in our

literature too, in fables and poems and novels and plays.

So we at Shorts thought it might be a good idea to invite some to fly in for an evening.

And we knew it was a good idea when we found out that our old friend the novelist Amy Tan is an avian enthusiast.

Tan's published works include the novels The Joy Luck Club and The Valley of Amazement.

Her most recent work is the memoir,

Where the Past Begins.

I've been a reader of Amy Tan's work

since the Joy Luck Club broke my heart

and everyone else's over three decades ago.

I was so moved by what she expressed about mothers and daughters,

but more generally her work often explores secret and unspoken histories, and though the

characters in her novels may generally be more earthbound than the birds on this show, still the work soars.

Ten joined us for a live evening of stories as colorful and varied as birds themselves.

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