Guest host Cynthia Nixon presents two stories in which people go overboard to demonstrate their devotion.  In Robin Hemley’s “A Printer’s Tale,” a poet’s boyfriend hijacks a national magazine for her love--and one reader isn’t pleased.  Reader Robert Sean

A story by the writer Brit Bennett, "Ain't That Good News" is tender, sad, and packs a wallop. You'll be completely hooked. Bennett's debut novel The Mothers made a splash in 2016 (soon to be a movie starring Kerry Washington), the same year she was name

Guest host Hope Davis presents three uncanny stories featuring children.  In Simon Rich’s  hilarious “The Baby,” a novelist faces competition from his unborn son.  Jason Mantzoukas is the reader.  A children’s game takes a strange turn in Fiona McFarlane’

Guest host Maulik Pancholy presents a show about the past, the future, and how time flies.  A young actor recalls critical moments in her childhood in Elizabeth Strout’s “Snow Blind,” read by Melora Hardin.  Old schoolmates almost hook up in Joyce Carol O

Guest host Hope Davis presents a program of Italian short fiction selected by the novelist and short-story writer Jhumpa Lahiri.  The stories were drawn from The Penguin Book of Italian Short Stories, which Lahiri edited.  They range from the comic to the

Guest host Tayari Jones helps us to celebrate this American master, who died in 2019.  Her novels, including Beloved, Jazz and Song of Solomon, have become an indelible part of the American canon.  Her fierce, poetic visions earned her the Pulitzer Prize,

Mona Simpson is the author of six books including Anywhere But Here, My Hollywood and Casebook. Her Too Hot For Radio story features a therapist, a patient, and one uniquely inappropriate relationship.This story was originally published in Harper’s and se

Guest host Denis O’Hare helps us mark the landmark event that helped give birth to the modern movement for LGBTQIA+ rights in America.  We first hear eyewitness accounts of the riots, drawn from The Stonewall Reader.  Additional works include Perry Brass’

Guest host Hope Davis presents two stories in which things get out of hand.  Rumors and recriminations fly in “Belles Lettres,” by Nafissa Thompson-Spires, as rival mothers defend their daughters’ reputations at a posh school--at any cost.  The readers ar

Guest host Dennis O’Hare presents two unorthodox love stories at a time when we could all use a little love.   British writer Jane Gardam twists Hans Christian Andersen’s tale in a saucy reboot of “The Little Mermaid.”  Her version, “The Pangs of Love,” i