Betrayal, obsession, scandal.

These days, this kind of outrageous fun is associated with your latest binge watch.

But on this episode of Selected Shorts, we dig into all the intrigue a great short story can deliver.

I'm Meg Wallitzer. Join me.

You're listening to Selected Shorts, where our for fiction that is about the act of reading and writing.

It gives us an opportunity to explore the

act of literary creation from several perspectives. First, what impels a writer to write, and what

kinds of challenges does that commitment offer? Second, why do people read? What is the effect of a

powerful text? Why do we cherish books? And third, does writing have a life beyond that of its creators? Is text ultimately the human subtext? This program is bookended by the distinguished poet Billy Collins in two poems about reading and writing. In between stories that consider the idea of what constitutes success,

and whether this attaches itself more to the author or to the work itself.

The first is a provocative fantasy by N.K. Jemison, about the price of literary celebrity,

and in the second, by Ian McEwen, a daring plot reverses the

fortunes of two writers. If we ever need reminding about the deft economy of poetry, Billy Collins

is there. The former poet laureate of the United States is often praised for his ability

to add something transcendental to ordinary subjects in such volumes as questions about angels and sailing alone around the room, new and selected poems.

You've enjoyed reader Kirsten Vangsness as computer-wiz Penelope Garcia on the television series Criminal Minds,

but she's also an accomplished performance artist, touring with her

show's Mess and Theo, Cleo, and Wu, and sharing Kirsten's agenda on her podcast.

Here she is with Books by Billy Collins.

Thank you. Books. From the heart of this dark, evacuated campus, I can hear the library humming in the night, an immense choir of authors muttering inside their books

along the unlit alphabetical shelves. Giovanni Pontano next to Pope, Dumas next to his son,

each one stitched into his own private coat, together forming a low, gigantic cord of language. I picture a figure

...