This reading by Alex Karpovsky of Etgar Keret’s “Creative Writing” is part of the SELECTED SHORTS program “Writers on Writing,” hosted by Jane Kaczmarek.
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Creative Writing
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Dreaming Out Loud: Neil Gaiman’s Halloween
Fantasy writer Neil Gaiman hosts a Halloween special featuring two of his own stories and a classic by John Collier.
The title says it all in “When We Went to See the End of the World by Dawnie Morningside, Age 11¼.” Gaiman says he imagined a young girl writing an essay for school, but the story has the wistful, unintentional irony of a grown world viewed through a child’s eyes. SHORTS regular reader Kirsten Vangsness, a star of the television series “Criminal Minds,” is a friend of Gaiman’s, and demanded to read this. Good thing too.
Gaiman himself reads John Collier’s eerie “Evening Primrose,” about a secret society that inhabits a large department store. He says it’s a pity that Collier isn’t better known, as he was the creator of many an eerie tale, as well as other works including the screenplay for “African Queen.” “Evening Primrose” has been adapted in a number of other media, notably as a musical by Stephen Sondheim; for the radio series “Escape;” and by the BBC. It was originally published in 1951 in the collection Fancies and Goodnights.
The program finishes with another Gaiman story, “July Tale.” It was part of a crowd-sourced fiction project that he did in conjunction with Blackberry, asking people to write in response to questions he posed on Twitter. The result was “Calendar Tales,” a story for each month of the year. In this one, a lovesick husband builds an igloo out of books. (Gaiman’s tweet was “What’s the strangest thing you’ve seen in July?”) Gaiman reads.
A Halloween extra!
Neil Gaiman did a special studio recording of another one of the calendar tales. In this one, “June Tale”, an exasperated ‘tween recounts the endless quarrelling of her parents, but between the lines, there seems to be love.
“When We Went to See the End of the World by Dawnie Morningside, Age 11¼,” by Neil Gaiman, performed by Kirsten Vangsness
“Evening Primrose,” by John Collier, performed by Neil Gaiman
“July Tale,” by Neil Gaiman, performed by Neil Gaiman
“June Tale,” by Neil Gaiman, performed by Neil Gaiman
The SELECTED SHORTS theme is David Peterson's “That's the Deal,” performed by the Deardorf/Peterson Group.
For additional works featured on SELECTED SHORTS, please visit http://www.symphonyspace.org/events/series/71/selected-shorts
We’re interested in your response to these programs. Please comment on this site or visit www.selectedshorts.org
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The End of the World
This reading by Kirsten Vangsness of Neil Gaiman’s story “When We Went to See the End of the World by Dawnie Morningside, Age 11¼” is part of the SELECTED SHORTS program “Dreaming Out Loud: Neil Gaiman’s Halloween,” hosted by Neil Gaiman.
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Evening Primrose
This reading by Neil Gaiman of John Collier’s story “Evening Primrose” is part of the SELECTED SHORTS program “Dreaming Out Loud: Neil Gaiman’s Halloween,” hosted by Neil Gaiman.
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An Igloo Made of Books
This reading by Neil Gaiman of his story “July Tale” is part of the SELECTED SHORTS program “Dreaming Out Loud: Neil Gaiman’s Halloween,” hosted by Neil Gaiman.
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Family Vacation—Not
This reading by Neil Gaiman of his story “June Tale” is part of the SELECTED SHORTS program “Dreaming Out Loud: Neil Gaiman’s Halloween,” hosted by Neil Gaiman.
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Adventure Story
This reading by John Cameron Mitchell of Neil Gaiman’s story “Adventure Story” is part of the SELECTED SHORTS program “Transformations: More Neil Gaiman.”
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The Company of Wolves
This reading by Rita Wolf of Angela Carter’s story “The Company of Wolves” is part of the SELECTED SHORTS program “Transformations: More Neil Gaiman.”
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March Tale
This reading by Neil Gaiman of his story “March Tale” is part of the SELECTED SHORTS program “Transformations: More Neil Gaiman”
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The Man Who Forgot Ray Bradbury
This reading by Denis O’Hare of Neil Gaiman’s story “The Man Who Forgot Ray Bradbury” is part of the SELECTED SHORTS program “Transformations: More Neil Gaiman"
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Social Climbers
In Jonathan Franzen’s “Ambition” a wealthy couple’s marriage of convenience unravels.
After years of overlooking each other’s failings (he’s loutish and avaricious; she’s vain and lazy) and insulated from the world by luxury (“In the dry cool of her steel-and-glass rental, with a full-time cook, and gardener, she felt like one of those infinitely pampered child pharaohs, like King Tut’s sister or something, awaiting interment in the Valley of the Kings”) each starts wanting more, and that is their undoing. Franzen says the story was one of a series on breakups that he started before getting diverted by such novels as “Freedom” and “The Corrections.” He is also the author of the memoir “The Discomfort Zone.”
“Ambition” is read by Edie Falco, a multiple Emmy Award winner for her roles on “The Sopranos” and “Nurse Jackie.”
The second story on this program is about the insulated upper crust of a different era.
Dorothy Parker’s biting wit and wicked eye for social pretension made her the toast of the Algonquin Roundtable and a regular contributor to The New Yorker. She favored madcap monologues, like this non-stop complaint “From the Diary of a New York Lady,” originally published in The New Yorker in March of 1933 with the subtitle “During Days of Panic, Frenzy, and World Change.”
Reader Mary Louise Wilson, the Tony Award-winning star of “Grey Gardens,” was up to the challenge of recreating Parker’s hilariously vain and selfish socialite.
“Ambition,” by Jonathan Franzen, performed by Edie Falco
“From the Diary of a New York Lady,” by Dorothy Parker, performed by Mary Louise Wilson
The SELECTED SHORTS theme is David Peterson's “That's the Deal,” performed by the Deardorf/Peterson Group.
For additional works featured on SELECTED SHORTS, please visit http://www.symphonyspace.org/events/series/71/selected-shorts
We’re interested in your response to these programs. Please comment on this site or visit www.selectedshorts.org
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From the Diary of a New York Lady
This reading by Mary Louise Wilson of Dorothy Parker’s story “From the Diary of a New York Lady” is part of the SELECTED SHORTS program “Social Climbers,” hosted by Cynthia Nixon.
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Ambition
This reading by Edie Falco of Jonathan Franzen’s story “Ambition” is part of the SELECTED SHORTS program “Social Climbers,” hosted by Cynthia Nixon.
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Queens and Babies
This program features two stories about extreme love. In “Magic and Dread,” an excerpt from Jenny Offill’s novel Dept. of Speculation, a new mother is exhausted and exhilarated by the life she has brought into the world, and what she learns about herself as she adapts to motherhood. Offill’s other works include the novel Last Things, and, naturally, several children’s books. The reader is performance artist Kaneza Schaal, who has performed with Elevator Repair Service and the Wooster Group, as well as crafting the work “Please Bury Me,” based on the Egyptian Book of the Dead. “Magic and Dread” was performed at the North Bergen Public Library.
Next, Broadway star BD Wong reads the story of the doomed love affair between a Trojan warrior and Dido, the Queen of Carthage, from Virgil’s Aeneid. Epic poetry is where we got our template for stories about tempestuous romantic women, handsome guys, and heartache.
“Magic and Dread,” an excerpt from Dept. of Speculation, by Jenny Offill, performed by Kaneza Schaal
“The Tragic Queen of Carthage,” from the Aeneid by Virgil, translated by Robert Fagles, performed by BD Wong
The SELECTED SHORTS theme is David Peterson's “That's the Deal,” performed by the Deardorf/Peterson Group.
For additional works featured on SELECTED SHORTS, please visit http://www.symphonyspace.org/events/series/71/selected-shorts
We’re interested in your response to these programs. Please comment on this site or visit www.selectedshorts.org
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Magic and Dread
This reading by Kaneza Schaal, of an excerpt from Jenny Offill’s novel Dept. of Speculation, is part of the SELECTED SHORTS program “Queens and Babies,” hosted by Cynthia Nixon.
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The Tragic Queen of Carthage
This reading by BD Wong, of an excerpt from Virgil’s Aeneid, is part of the SELECTED SHORTS program “Queens and Babies,” hosted by Cynthia Nixon.
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Homegirls on St. Nicholas Avenue
This reading by Marsha Stephanie Blake of Sonia Sanchez’s “Homegirls on St. Nicholas Avenue,” is part of the SELECTED SHORTS program “So You Want to Change the World?” hosted by Robert Sean Leonard.
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Fenstad’s Mother
This reading by Edie Falco, of Charles Baxter’s “Fenstad’s Mother,” is part of the SELECTED SHORTS program “So You Want to Change the World?” hosted by Robert Sean Leonard.
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So You Want to Change the World?
The program includes three stories about social revolution and personal revelation, presented by Robert Sean Leonard. Our first two stories date from the turbulent 1960s, when a generation of African-Americans began to demand their rights, on the streets, and in print. In “Homegirls on St. Nicholas Avenue,” read by Marsha Stephanie Blake, the writer Sonia Sanchez remembers when Malcolm X changed her life. Sanchez is a poet, teacher, and activist whose works include I've Been a Woman: New and Selected Poems, Wounded in the House of a Friend, Does Your House have Lions?, and Like the Singing Coming Off of Drums. Marsha Stephanie Blake has appeared on Broadway in “The Merchant of Venice” and “Joe Turner’s Come and Gone.” Her television work includes the shows “Elementary” and “Law and Order: SVU.”
Henry Dumas’ “Strike and Fade,” brings back the volatile Harlem of the 1960s. Its first-person jive narrative has the energy and impatience of the youth whose lives and hopes were being threatened by authority, and who were prepared to fight back. Dumas died tragically young at 33, and his work was posthumously published through the efforts of his friend and collaborator Eugene Redmond, and of Quincy Troupe and Toni Morrison. His works include the poetry collection Play Ebony, Play Ivory, and an anthology of short stories, Ark of Bones.
“Strike and Fade,” was performed by Francois Battiste, whose stage performances include “Detroit ’67, “The Merchant of Venice” and “The Good Negro” at the Public Theater, for which he received the Obie Award.
In our final story, a mild-mannered teacher and his activist mother are brought to life by “Nurse Jackie” star Edie Falco, in Charles Baxter’s “Fenstad’s Mother.” In a delicate study of two contrasting characters, he strives to be, while she simply is.
SHORTS literary commentator Hannah Tinti notes that Baxter is a writers’ writer, and his book Burning Down the House a go-to source for ways to “make your story come to life.” Baxter’s other works include the story collections Relative Stranger,
Believers, and Gryphon: New and Selected Stories. He was a 2011 recipient of the Rae Award for the Short Story, among other honors.
SHORTS literary commentator Tinti and host Robert Sean Leonard briefly discuss all three stories on this program.
“Homegirls on St. Nicholas Avenue,” by Sonia Sanchez, performed by Marsha Stephanie Blake
“Strike and Fade,” by Henry Dumas, performed by Francois Battiste
“Fenstad’s Mother,” by Charles Baxter; performed by Edie Falco
The SELECTED SHORTS theme is David Peterson's “That's the Deal,” performed by the Deardorf/Peterson Group.
For additional works featured on SELECTED SHORTS, please visit http://www.symphonyspace.org/events/series/71/selected-shorts
We’re interested in your response to these programs. Please comment on this site or visit www.selectedshorts.org
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Strike and Fade
This reading by Francois Battiste of Henry Dumas’s “Strike and Fade,” is part of the SELECTED SHORTS program “So You Want to Change the World?” hosted by Robert Sean Leonard.
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