The Best American Short Stories

Selected Shorts

Symphony Space

Arts, Fiction, Books, Society & Culture

4.4 • 2.7K Ratings

🗓️ 11 May 2023

⏱️ 59 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Host Meg Wolitzer presents our annual celebration of this important collection. This year’s show features a pick by 2022 Best American guest editor Andrew Sean Greer, “The Little Widow from the Capital,” by Yohanca Delgado, performed by Krystina Alabado. And our second story was selected by John Updike for the volume Best American Stories of the Century. It’s Grace Stone Coates’ “Wild Plums,” read by Mia Dillon. This episode features on-stage commentary by Greer. It's dedicated to mix engineer Dennis Jacobsen.

Transcript

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0:00.0	This episode is dedicated to Dennis Jacobson.
0:11.0	Coming up, the best American short stories.
0:13.0	No, really.
0:14.0	Pulitzer Prize winning author Andrew Schongreer
0:17.0	edited this year's Best American Collection.
0:19.0	And on this edition of Selected Shorts,
0:21.0	we hear one of his picks
0:23.0	and one that was a favorite of John Updikes.
0:25.0	I'm your host, Meg Wallitzer.
0:27.0	Stay with us.
0:31.0	You're listening to Selected Shorts,
0:33.0	where our greatest actors transport us
0:36.0	through the magic of fiction, one short story at a time.
0:39.0	Opinions, we've all got them,
0:42.0	and by the time anyone dares to challenge them,
0:44.0	they tend to be fully baked in and intractable.
0:47.0	Like that pan you forgot to soak overnight in the sink.
0:50.0	All right, that pan I forgot to soak overnight in the sink.
0:54.0	But sometimes it's nice to not think
0:56.0	about what you personally feel or believe,
0:58.0	but instead give yourself over to someone else's opinions
1:01.0	and worldview,
	...

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