"Talk" Radio

I’m always bragging about being a life-long New Yorker and like everyone else born and raised here, I think I know everything that goes on wherever and whenever it happens. So I’m embarrassed to admit that although I have been addicted to reading short stories since I was a kid, I never knew about Selected Shorts, which has apparently been going on without me for nearly two decades.

Actors read classic and new short fiction before a live audience and the event is broadcast on the radio. The annual season of the live events at Symphony Space begins in the mid-fall and ends in mid-spring, and usually consists of three short story readings. Symphony Space's Artistic Director Isaiah Sheffer hosts the live event, although many Selected Shorts also feature guest hosts, often well-known writers, who will also choose the stories to be read that evening. Works read have included the classic writing of Chekhov and Maupassant, the near classics of Alice Munro, John Updike, Dorothy Parker and Alice Walker, as well as new literary talents, such as Pulitzer Prize-winning Jhumpa LaHiri and Jonathan Franzen.

In New York City Selected Shorts airs Saturdays at 10 PM on 93.9 FM and on Sundays at 1 PM on 820 AM. You can also find Selected Shorts on Public Radio International affiliate stations in the United States. The radio program airs weekly throughout the year.

I’ve always appreciated books on tapes, but literature by radio is a new concept for me. How about you? Is there a literature show in your neighborhood? Do you tune in?

Terrie