Meg Wolitzer
👤 SpeakerAppearances Over Time
Podcast Appearances
And now, let's hear Direction of the Road by Ursula K. Le Guin, read by Nikki M. James.
That was Nicky M. James performing Direction of the Road by Ursula K. Le Guin.
It's fun, isn't it, to imagine a tree, so often a supporting player in our human stories, as something capable of agency and endowed with immense power?
Not to mention capable of beating a car in a foot race.
Le Guin is never one to shy away from the large and the looming.
She stares at all in the face, just as the driver of the car in her story does, looking and truly seeing, and along the way making us see, too.
Which is just what she does in all of her fiction.
It's no wonder the word visionary often comes to mind when thinking of Ursula K. Le Guin.
When we return, the divorcee, the rabbi, and the bookstore.
You're listening to Selected Shorts, recorded live in performance at Symphony Space in New York City and at other venues nationwide.
This is Selected Shorts, where our greatest actors transport us through the magic of fiction, one short story at a time.
In our program today, we're hearing stories about forks in the road at which characters have to choose which way to go.
Our second piece is by writer Helen Shulman.
Her novels include This Beautiful Life and Lucky Dogs.
And whether she's writing a family drama, a satire, or a thriller, Shulman is always playing with big ideas.
The story we're about to hear about finding your center in a constantly changing world was published in her latest story collection, Fools for Love.