This is the New Yorker Fiction Podcast from the New Yorker magazine.

I'm Deborah Triesman, Fiction Editor at the New Yorker.

Each month we invite a writer to choose a story from the magazine's archives to read and discuss.

This month we're going to hear the years of my birth by Louise Erdrich,

which was published in the New Yorker in January of 2011.

Growing up in the midst of a large family, I had never registered the visitations from my presence.

At those rare moments when I was alone, as something strange.

The first time I was aware of it was when I was taken from Betty and put in a white room.

After that, I occasionally had the sensation that there was someone walking beside me or sitting behind me.

Always just beyond my peripheral vision.

The story was chosen by Tommy Orange, whose first novel, There There,

was published in 2018 and was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize.

Hi Tommy. Hey Deborah.

So what made you choose a story by Louise Erdrich for the podcast?

You had published, I think last year, a short story of hers called The Stone.

It's a pretty short, short story and it's a strange story and it just struck me.

So when you asked me to choose a story I went looking for another one of hers

and she's actually published a lot in the New Yorker.

Because I haven't known her for short stories.

She only has one collection of short stories, you know, with a pretty massive career.

Most of her stories start a story and end up in her novels.

Yeah, that's what I've heard her say.

...