Hi, this is Meg Wallitzer, the host of Selected Shorts, and welcome to the first episode of our

spin-off podcast, Tell Me More. If you know Selected Shorts, our radio show and flagship podcast,

you know that we're obsessed with stories. This new show, Tell Me More,

will give us the chance to talk about a lot of different kinds of stories,

not just fiction.

In the future, we'll be talking to actors and journalists

and, who knows, scientists, visual artists, even chefs.

I mean, creative people all tell stories of some kind,

and this is our chance to look behind the scenes

and find out

how those stories get made.

Today I'm talking to podcaster Catherine Nikolai of Nothing Much Happens.

The title of her podcast tells you a lot of what you need to know.

Her show is entirely fiction,

written and performed for occasional insomniacs like myself, who needs something calming in their

ear at night to help them fall asleep. The show is incredibly popular, and I know why I like it.

As a fiction writer and reader, I gravitate not only to story, but also to the feeling that a story can give you.

And when I started listening to Catherine Nicolai's podcast, I realized that it gave me a really

specific feeling. I haven't studied the range of sleep podcasts out there, so I can't compare

this one to others, but her stories take place in an imaginary village. And even though the characters aren't given a lot of description

and the action is on a really low boil,

I was not only never bored,

...