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 Covid19 crisis will help us continue to provide great programs free of charge. Thank you for your support.
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Contact path
Public web form
Booking probability
44%
Guest openness
Selective
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Signup to Generate a PitchSpellbinding 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.
Recent episodes include "Mostly Good Intentions" (15 October 2026, 58 minutes), "Passport to Ireland with Colum McCann" (1 October 2026, 58 minutes), and "The New American West" (24 September 2026, 58 minutes).
Selected Shorts publishes roughly weekly, with episodes averaging 59 minutes across 275 episodes.
Booking probability for Selected Shorts is 44%, and the host is rated Selective on guests. Selected Shorts requires a Pod Score of 80 or higher. Selected Shorts's contact route on record: public web form.
The strongest fits for Selected Shorts are Performing Arts. Selected Shorts has an arts audience.
Selected Shorts is an arts show with 275 episodes published.
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Selected Shorts
Meg Wolitzer presents three stories that explore good intentions and how they can go wrong. In “Mantis,” by Gina Chung, a deadly insect tries to mend her ways. The reader is Monica Raymund. Dino Buzzati’s “The Jacket,”...
Selected Shorts
On this Selected Shorts, host Meg Wolitzer invites us on a literary tour of Ireland with bestselling author Colum McCann, who hosted a live event at Symphony Space celebrating the rich heritage of Irish literature, and...
Selected Shorts
Host Meg Wolitzer presents two works that reassess and redefine our ideas of “the West.” It’s both a landscape of awesome beauty, and the scene of cultural appropriation, and we’ve got two masters sharing and shaping...
Selected Shorts
Meg Wolitzer presents two stories that combine different sorts of unknowables: unidentified—or hard to identify—flying objects, and romantic love. In “The Duck,” by Ben Loory, a heartsick mallard has chosen a really...
Selected Shorts
Meg Wolitzer presents two favorite Selected Shorts works in which food and nourishment figure both literally and symbolically. The narrator of Haruki Murakami’s “The Year of Spaghetti” seems to be just sharing pasta...
Selected Shorts
Host Meg Wolitzer presents two works about love and marriage. In Amy Silverberg’s “Have You Met Husband?” two men and a dog vie for this title. The reader is Molly Bernard. And Mary Gordon’s “The Magician’s Wife” is a...
Selected Shorts
Host Meg Wolitzer presents three works of speculative fiction curated by best-selling author N.K. Jemisin. In John Scalzi’s “When the Yogurt Took Over” a popular breakfast staple decides it’s good for everyone. The...
Selected Shorts
SELECTED SHORTS host Meg Wolitzer presents four works that were read as part of our live evening with WNYC’s Radiolab and hosts Lulu Miller and Latif Nasser. The theme was flight in many imaginative manifestations...
Selected Shorts
Host Meg Wolitzer presents two stories about perception and the relationship between what we see and what we believe. In “Heart of a Champion,” T.C. Boyle gives the children’s classic Lassie an affectionately humorous...
Selected Shorts
Host Meg Wolitzer presents three lively stories about the allure—or not—of summer. Italian writer Massimo Bontempeli creates a magical beach inside an apartment in “The Miraculous Beach, or Prize for Modesty.” The work...
Selected Shorts
Host Meg Wolitzer presents two works about shifting identities. In “Voices”, by German writer Daniel Kehlmann, translated by Carol Brown Janeway, a computer technician’s mobile phone takes over his life—and not in the...
Selected Shorts
Host Meg Wolitzer presents three works about idealized lives, and ideas about what constitutes an ideal life. “Boy Meets Girl” is Jen Kim’s humorous version of a Hollywood love story. It’s read by Tony Hale. In the John...
Selected Shorts
Host Meg Wolitzer presents two works about being careful. The title says it all in George Saunders’ “Lars Farf, Excessively Fearful Father and Husband,” as the central character goes to greater and greater extremes to...
Selected Shorts
Host Meg Wolitzer presents two works about losing something, but finding something revealing to take its place. In “Light,” by Lesley Nkeka Arimah, parents differ about how to raise a strong-willed daughter. The reader...
Selected Shorts
Host Meg Wolitzer presents three works from an evening with New Yorker author and cartoonist Roz Chast, inspired by Chast’s book I Must be Dreaming. “The Wife on Ambien,” by Ed Park, is a sort of late-night fever dream...
Selected Shorts
Host Meg Wolitzer presents two O’Henry Prize-winning stories, from the volume guest edited by Edward P. Jones. The Prize was created in honor of the 19th-century writer best known for slyly humorous stories like “The...
Selected Shorts
Host Meg Wolitzer presents two unconventional love stories, one classic, one contemporary, that avoid the usual tropes of “meet cute,” “opposites attract,” or “happily ever after” but are still engaging. In “Love in the...
Selected Shorts
In the second of two programs created with the podcast Death, Sex, and Money and our live event host Anna Sale, we explore issues of happiness. Host Meg Wolitzer introduces a satirical romance by Oscar Wilde (did he...
Selected Shorts
In the first of two programs created with the podcast Death, Sex, and Money and host Anna Sale, we explore issues of identity and connection. In “Sacrament of Confession,” by Ernie Wang, a man struggles with a messy...
Selected Shorts
Host Meg Wolitzer presents four stories, recorded at the Getty Center in Los Angeles, in which characters shape their expectations and dreams to a manageable size. So if you’re “Medusa,” as in our first story, by Tania...
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