SELECTED SHORTS host Meg Wolitzer presents three works that explore the complicated lives of women. Edwidge Danticat’s essay “Women Like Us” honors the long line of strong women in...

Guest host Tayari Jones presents stories about rites of passage between childhood and adulthood. In Brazilian writer Clarice Lispector’s lyrical “The First Kiss,” a young boy has his first...

Guest host Kirsten Vangsness presents three stories about hard choices. In Jac Jemc’s “Trivial Pursuit,” a husband and wife run the gamut of odd couples while trying to construct...

Guest host Maulik Pancholy presents two favorite stories from our archives about childhood dreams and desires. In “The Mathematician.” by Daniel Kehlmann, a mature genius is trapped in a...

On this episode, a story about sexual encounters between the seventy-year-old narrator, voiced by Kathleen Chalfant, and her thirty-two-year-old neighbor Richard. Plus host Aparna Nancherla chats with the author...

Guest host David Sedaris presents three stories about love and constraints. Jamaica Kincaid’s “Girl” conjures up a tough but loving mother in a humorous laundry list of dos and...

Guest host Jane Curtin presents a cornucopia of jokes, poems, and stories from a live program with comedian Mike Birbiglia and poet J. Hope Stein. The couple shares material...

Guest host Hope Davis presents two stories in which strong bonds between women are evoked, by authors reflecting very different worlds. In Youmna Chlala’s “Nayla,” read by Rita Wolf,...

Guest host Jane Curtin presents two stories from the influential literary journal Ploughshares. “y = mx+b,” by Andrew Altschul uses an algebraic formula to explore the act of storytelling...