Selected Shorts: Stephen King presents The Best American Shorts Stories

Stephen King, bestselling author and guest editor of The Best American Short Stories 2007, introduces three of the page-turners he selected for this year's collection. Each one delivers what Mr. King wants all stories to convey: a "sense of emotional involvement, of flipped-out amazement...like a big hot meteor screaming down from the Kansas sky."

Performance playlist:

Introductions by Stephen King

St. Lucy's Home for Girls Raised by Wolves
by Karen Russell
performed by Joanna Gleason

Balto
by T.C. Boyle
performed by Judith Ivey

T. Coraghessan Boyle is the author of 19 books of fiction, including After the Plague, Drop City, The Inner Circle, Tooth and Claw and Talk Talk. His book World's End won the PEN/Faulkner Award and Drop City was nominated for the 2003 National Book Award. His stories appear regularly in major American magazines, including The New Yorker, Harper's, Esquire, The Atlantic Monthly, Playboy, The Paris Review, GQ and McSweeney's. He lives near Santa Barbara, California.

Joanna Gleason won Tony, Drama Desk, and Outer Critics Circle Awards for her performance in Into the Woods. She received a Theatre World Award, two Drama Desk Awards and two Tony Award nominations for her other Broadway work, including Dirty Rotten Scoundrels, Nick and Nora, The Real Thing, I Love My Wife, Social Security and Joe Egg. Ms. Gleason's films include Hannah and Her Sisters, Crimes and Misdemeanors, Heartburn, Fathers and Sons, Mr. Holland's Opus, Boogie Nights and The Wedding Planner as well as the upcoming The Girl in the Park, Wedding Daze, Sex and The City: The Movie and The Women. Her recent television credits include The West Wing; The Practice; Oh, Baby; E.R.; and Bette. She is a recurring voice on the animated series King of the Hill and directed CBS's Love and War; Louie; and Oh, Baby.

Judith Ivey is a two-time Tony Award winner for Steaming and Hurlyburly, and an Obie Award winner for The Moonshot Tape. An Emmy Award nominee for What the Deaf Man Heard, she has starred in Designing Women and Down Home and has made guest appearances on series including Will & Grace and Law & Order: SVU. Ms. Ivey was inducted into the Texas Film Hall of Fame with many film credits, among them Devil's Advocate, Washington Square and Brighton Beach Memoirs. She has also been honored for her recorded books, most recently, The Incredible Journey of Edward Fontaine for ages 8-12. Next season, she will direct the Off Broadway production of Secrets of a Soccer Mom.

Stephen King is the bestselling author of 60 books and more than 200 short stories, including "The Man in the Black Suit," for which he won the O. Henry Award. His books include the Dark Tower novels, Cell, From a Buick 8, Everything's Eventual, Hearts in Atlantis, The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon, Misery, The Green Mile, Bag of Bones, On Writing and, most recently, the novel Lisey's Story. He is the recipient of the 2003 National Book Foundation Medal for Distinguished Contribution to American Letters. He lives in Bangor, Maine, with his wife, novelist Tabitha King.

Karen Russell has been featured in The New Yorker's debut fiction issue and was chosen as one of Granta's Best Young American Novelists in 2007. She is a graduate of the Columbia M.F.A. program and the 2005 recipient of the Transatlantic/Henfield Award; her short story collection, St. Lucy's Home for Girls Raised by Wolves, was just released in paperback. A native of Miami, she now lives in New York City, where she is working on a novel called Swamplandia!, about a family of alligator wrestlers.