Shows / Selected Shorts
Selected Shorts
Spellbinding short stories by established and emerging writers take on a new life when they are performed by stars of the stage and screen. Listen free on your computer or mobile device. Symphony Space, the home of Selected Shorts, was founded almost 40 years ago in the belief that the arts bring people together, transcend barriers, and celebrate both our similarities and our differences. That belief remains our guiding principle and is more important now than ever. Your generosity during the…
Episodes
- Selected Shorts
All of It with Alison Stewart
Host Meg Wolitzer partnered with WNYC’s Alison Stewart on this program featuring tales of love and haunting by new and established writers who have been…
- Selected Shorts
With a Little Help
Host Meg Wolitzer presents four stories in which characters give, and get, a little assistance, from friends, strangers and family. A daughter copes with a…
- Selected Shorts
SS 2022-23 #35 Podcast with DJ dedication
Host Meg Wolitzer presents our annual celebration of this important collection. This year’s show features a pick by 2022 Best American guest editor Andrew Sean…
- Selected Shorts
The Stories We Tell Ourselves with Brooke Gladstone
Host Meg Wolitzer presents stories chosen by On the Media’s Brooke Gladstone. Gladstone was our guest for a live Selected Shorts event in which all the stories…
- Selected Shorts
Secret Spaces
Meg Wolitzer presents two stories about secret spaces, and what they represent. In N.K. Jemisin’s speculative fantasy “Elevator Dancer” a security guard in a…
- Selected Shorts
On Repeat
Meg Wolitzer presents three provocative works about rituals that reshape and define their characters. In “oh she gotta head fulla hair,” by Ntozake Shange, a…
- Selected Shorts
Grace Paley Centennial
On this Selected Shorts, host Meg Wolitzer shares our tribute to the influential and outspoken New Yorker Grace Paley, who would have turned 100 in 2022. Her…
- Selected Shorts
Friendship!
On this show, host Meg Wolitzer gets friendly, and shares three stories about friendships of all kinds. Kelly Stout’s zinger “Let’s Get Drinks,” offers up the…
- Selected Shorts
#28 Approaching Peace
On this show, Meg Wolitzer hands things off to guest host Hope Davis, who presents three stories about finding some kind of peace and stability in a variety of…
- Selected Shorts
Slippery Roads and Fancy Shorts
Host Meg Wolitzer presents two stories in which some things are saved and some are left behind. Both stories also have a connection to the German language. In…
- Selected Shorts
The World According to Vonnegut
Host Meg Wolitzer presents stories by Kurt Vonnegut in which the Slaughterhouse Five author somehow managed to make a bleak dystopia funny and a high school…
- Selected Shorts
The Road Not Taken
On this Selected Shorts program, host Meg Wolitzer presents stories about journeys—physical and emotional—that end in unexpected places. In “A Woman Driving…
- Selected Shorts
Work of Art
Host Meg Wolitzer presents stories of inspirations small and large. In these tales, writers investigate moments in which art inspires life, or life inspires…
- Selected Shorts
Almost Like Love
On this week’s SELECTED SHORTS, Meg Wolitzer presents two stories about love, or the next best thing. In Pam Houston’s “How to Talk to a Hunter” a smart woman…
- Selected Shorts
Jokes and Poems with Mike Birbiglia and J. Hope Stein
We reprise a recent favorite this week: Guest host Jane Curtin presents a cornucopia of jokes, poems, and stories from a live program with comedian Mike…
- Selected Shorts
Objects of Love
Host Meg Wolitzer presents two stories about objects of love, and feelings that can't be returned, for very different reasons. In “A Love Letter,” by Greg…
- Selected Shorts
When Push Comes to Shove: Stories by George Saunders
This week on SELECTED SHORTS we turn the show over to universally beloved author George Saunders. Saunders somehow finds the good, or at any rate the…
- Selected Shorts
On the Run
Host Meg Wolitzer presents two gripping stories about people in flight. In Rebecca Makkai’s “The Briefcase,” performed by Victor Garber, an escaped prisoner…
- Selected Shorts
New Frontiers
Meg Wolitzer presents three stories about quests and travel, which pose the question “How far do we need to go to find what we want, whether that something be…
- Selected Shorts
Unwrapping the Holidays
Meg Wolitzer presents three unexpected stories that let us see the holidays’ associations—family, friends, food, gifts, and goodwill—in different ways. Amy…
- Selected Shorts
Prove Your Love
Meg Wolitzer presents a show of stories about our need to have “proof of love”—some demonstration by those nearest and dearest of exactly how much they care. A…
- Selected Shorts
A Night at the Theater
Meg Wolitzer presents a show about the theater, and those who love it. Rachel Klein’s “Audience Instructions for Our Immersive/Experimental Theatre Production…
- Selected Shorts
In Dad We Trust--Maybe
Host Meg Wolitzer presents three stories about fathers and fatherhood. In “Beauty and the Beast” by Simon Rich, a self-absorbed producer gets a little Disney…
- Selected Shorts
Distance Learning
Meg Wolitzer hands off to guest host Roxane Gay in this rebroadcast of a show about considering people and feelings at a distance. Italian fabulist Italo…
- Selected Shorts
The Me I Used to Be
SELECTED SHORTS host Meg Wolitzer presents three works about change. Yalcin Tosun’s “Muzaffer and Bananas” explores the awkward rites of passage of two…
- Selected Shorts
Miracle Grow
Host Meg Wolitzer presents two works about growth helped along by some sort of fantastical assistance. The characters in these pieces are stuck; consciously or…
- Selected Shorts
Taking Flight with Amy Tan
Host Meg Wolitzer presents three works featuring birds, curated by writer and bird aficionado Amy Tan. Ben Loory’s “The Frog and the Bird,” is a twist the…
- Selected Shorts
Great Escapes
Host Meg Wolitzer presents three works that contemplate a way out—of our lives, and even of this world. In Joe Meno’s “Books You Read,” performed by Joan…
- Selected Shorts
Wear and Tear
Host Meg Wolitzer presents three works that offer unusual perspectives on clothes and fashion—selling, making, and coveting. In Anne Enright’s “(She Owns)…
- Selected Shorts
Bonus: Meg Wolitzer Talks to Elizabeth Strout
Bonus: Meg Wolitzer Talks to Elizabeth Strout by Symphony Space
- Selected Shorts
Embracing Change
On this episode of Selected Shorts, host Meg Wolitzer presents three stories about change. A playful fantasy, a domestic dilemma, and a private struggle help…
- Selected Shorts
What's Your Story?
Host Meg Wolitzer presents three stories about the act of writing and how it can remake us--a prankish skit; a playful and tender investigation of creating…
- Selected Shorts
What's Left Behind
Host Meg Wolitzer presents three diverse stories that look at what gets left behind when life changes, gradually or suddenly. Restless retirees try on the…
- Selected Shorts
Truly, Madly
Host Meg Wolitzer presents two stories about the course of true love, from two very different perspectives. Sigrid Nunez explores a roller-coaster romance in a…
- Selected Shorts
TRY THIS ON: STORIES FROM AN EVENING WITH NEW YORK MAGAZINE’S ‘THE CUT’
This week we reprise a great show from our archives: guest host Cynthia Nixon presents stories from New York Magazine’s online portal “The Cut,” which combines…
- Selected Shorts
Coming and Going
Host Meg Wolitzer presents four stories about journeys, both physical and emotional. Strangers size one another up on a busy city bus in Kurt Vonnegut’s…
- Selected Shorts
Who? What? Where?
Host Meg Wolitzer presents three stories that ask the big, basic questions: Who? What? Where? The characters resonate, the situations are intriguing, and each…
- Selected Shorts
Ferocious Figureheads
Host Meg Wolitzer presents two stories about indomitable women. A mother grieves a loss fiercely in Carribean Fragoza’s “Lumberjack Mom,” performed by Roberta…
- Selected Shorts
Bonus: Meg Wolitzer and Mona Eltahawy Talk Being a Dangerous Woman
In this bonus conversation, host Meg Wolitzer talks to journalist, activist and feminist writer Mona Eltahawy about her life, literature and what it means to…
- Selected Shorts
Dangerous Women
Host Meg Wolitzer presents three works about women who defy the status quo and might therefore be perceived as “dangerous.” In Margaret Atwood’s “Unpopular…
- Selected Shorts
INSEPARABLE
Host Meg Wolitzer presents two stories about close—but complex—ties of family and friendship. Jamaica Kincaid offers up a lyrical, dreamlike account of the…
- Selected Shorts
Antagonists Wanted
On this SELECTED SHORTS, bad guys. Host Meg Wolitzer presents three stories featuring famous villains, real and fictional. A woman writes a letter to a former…
- Selected Shorts
A Point of Honor
For Memorial Day, host Meg Wolitzer presents two stories that feature men in uniform, codes of honor, and how conflicts can sometime lead to connection. Maile…
- Selected Shorts
It Takes Two
Host Meg Wolitzer presents three stories about profound and unexpected connections between people—territory she herself covers a lot as a writer. Old enemies…
- Selected Shorts
SS #35 Small Odysseys Podcast
On this SELECTED SHORTS, host Meg Wolitzer presents two stories from our recently published anthology, Small Odysseys, which features 35 commissioned stories…
- Selected Shorts
Mothers Know Best
On this SELECTED SHORTS host Meg Wolitzer presents two stories featuring mothers and children, and entertains a special guest—her own mother, Hilma Wolitzer…
- Selected Shorts
A Didion Duo
On this SELECTED SHORTS host Meg Wolitzer presents two works by the dazzling writer Joan Didion, whose essays, novels, and memoirs have been beloved by…