What would you do to become a new you?

Could you give up the thing to which we're all addicted, the internet?

Or surrender yourself to an absolutely unknown future?

I'm Meg Wallitzer and this week on selected shorts, the risks and rewards of

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

Sometimes being a person can mean feeling a little trapped. I mean, you're always you,

and who among us during tough times has not imagined becoming someone or something other than

ourselves? As in, gee, the life of that pop star seems really great. Wouldn't it be nice to be

them for maybe a few minutes? Or how about a month?

Just long enough to become bored with a life of talent, wealth, and fame. Okay, one year tops,

and then I'll come back to my old life, my old self. I swear. On this selected shorts,

we're going to hear fiction about people who discover a whole new side of themselves.

That is, they hit on a real chance to become someone or something new.

And whether the characters lunge a change or resist it, whether they live a full new life or shrink back into their old selves, is all part of the fun.

One story is all about going analog in the

age of digital overload, and the other is about trying to maintain real friendship in the midst

of an upheaval. The first work we'll hear is by writer Kenneth Calhoun. He's published stories

in Tin House and the Paris Review, among other places.

His novel Black Moon is all about insomnia and how it upends civilization. This piece,

mindless in America, about bettering yourself with books, is one that shorts commissioned from

Calhoun directly. Our reader is actor Justin Kirk.

His impressive list of credits includes the series

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