I'm Meg Walitzer on this selected shorts.

I'm Meg Walitzer. On this selected short, characters are defined by the stories they tell.

B.J. Novak, Edgar Carrot and Lori Moore... Characters are defined by the stories they tell.

B.J. Novak, Edgar Carrot, and Lori Moore

let us in on their secrets.

And I get to sing a Leonard Cohen cover with Lori 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 with 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 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 in disgust. 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 two characters who don't get each

other's stories.

The author Lori Moore, a Storyteller We Treasure, joins me later in the show.

...