I'm Meg Wallitzer.

On this selected shorts, characters are defined by the stories they tell.

BJ Novak, Edgar Carrot, and Laurie Moore let us in on their secrets, and I get to sing

a Leonard Cohen cover with Laurie Moore.

Well don't worry, only about 10 seconds of one.

It'll be like a bridged literary karaoke.

It'll be over before you know it, and there's no cover charge, no drink minimum, no bathroom

or a really sticky floor.

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.

Storytelling is a natural human impulse, shaping everything from great novels to some

Twitter posts.

When I start writing something new, I want to be entirely free to take it wherever it

goes, but I also don't want to be boring either to myself or my phantom reader.

I know that he or she is free to put the book down either casually or indiscust.

But what actually keeps a person reading?

I think there's a question the reader always asks of a story.

Why are you telling me this?

And with a little luck, the answer soon becomes obvious.

On this show, three very different takes on narrative, a prankish skit, a playful

and tender investigation of creating with words, and a fraught social encounter between

...