To the right, you will find the last five programs that have aired on Selected Shorts. If you're interested in seeing our schedule of upcoming shows, you can view the schedule of upcoming shows.

Let Us Tell You a Story. Every week, great actors from stage, screen and television bring incredible stories to life. The originator of the driveway moment, Selected Shorts is the show over 300,000 people listen to every week on public radio. Hosted by Isaiah Sheffer, with literary commentator Hannah Tinti, and produced for radio by Symphony Space and WNYC Radio.

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May 13, 2012

A Literary Mix Tape

We think of this program as a literary “mix tape,” featuring two stories mingling with the music that inspired, or played a role in them. “Milestones,” by Miles Davis was the inspiration for Hannah Tinti’s story of the same name, read here by the performance artist Laurie Anderson.  Next, Beethoven’s Piano Sonata Number 12 is featured in Carson McCullers’ touching “Wunderkind.”  It is read by the prodigious musical theatre star Kelli O’Hara.

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May 6, 2012

All Modern Conveniences

In  Krista MacGruder’s “Not Quite Home Alone,” a solitary woman is surprised by an intruder.  The reader is Jacqueline Kim.  In the second story, Miranda July’s “The Shared Patio,” a woman takes her right to share a patio with her neighbors to extremes.    The reader is Kirsten Vangsness.  A hypochondriac beholds a monster in Poe’s “The Sphinx,” read by Kathleen Widdoes.  Finally, in Richard Ford’s “Privacy,” a novelist becomes obsessed with watching a neighbor.  The reader is René Auberjonois.

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April 29, 2012

What Is Real?

First, James Lasdun’s “A Woman at the Window,” is a cautionary tale for men who want to rescue damsels in distress.  The reader is Leenya Rideout.  Next, the late Ukranian-born writer Sigizmund Krzhizhanovsky has invented a substance that expands apartments, and wreaks havoc on the life of his main character.  “This American Life” commentator David Rakoff provides the nicely melancholy reading.  Finally, Leenya Rideout returns for “Flight,” in which a scatter-brained, lonely woman “borrows” her addled neighbor.

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April 18, 2012

ennessee, Edna, and Flannery

Each of the three works on this program, by masters Tennessee Williams, Edna O’Brien, and Flannery O’Connor, offers us intense and provocative close-ups of its main characters.  First, “Life Story,” a short prose poem about pillow talk by a very young Williams, read by Mia Dillon.  Sex is the theme of the second work as well: in Edna O’Brien’s inner monologue, “Violets,” a woman waits for a potential lover.  The reader is Fionnula Flanagan.  Finally, Flannery O’Connor’s “The Life You Save May Be Your Own,” features a mother, daughter, and tramp, each wishing for something different.  Lois Smith reads.

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April 15, 2012

Arrivals and Departures

A couple with a rocky marriage learn a life lesson when their home is invaded, and a whole community disappears in a powerful story about the Japanese internment, leaving their bewildered, or blinkered, neighbors behind.  Freda Foh Shen performs  Nahid Rachlin’s “Strangers in the House,” and Julie Otsuka’s imagining is performed by Jane Kaczmarek.

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