Child’s Play

Aimee Bender is the author of The Girl in the Flammable Skirt, An Invisible Sign of My Own, Willful Creatures, The Particular Sadness of Lemon Cake, The Color Master, and most recently, The Butterfly Lampshade. Her short fiction has appeared in Granta, GQ, Harper’s, Tin House, McSweeney’s, and The Paris Review, among other publications. Bender’s work has been honored with two Pushcart Prizes.

Hope Davis has appeared in the films About Schmidt; American Splendor; Synecdoche, New York; Captain America: Civil War; and Rebel in the Rye, among others. On television, Davis’s credits include In Treatment, The Newsroom, The Special Relationship, Allegiance, American Crime, Wayward Pines, with recent recurring roles in the series For the People, Strange Angel, and Love Life. Her theater credits include Ivanov, Two Shakespearean Actors, Spinning Into Butter, Food Chain, Measure for Measure, God of Carnage, for which she was nominated for a Tony Award, and The Red Barn. She can currently be seen in the miniseries Your Honor.

Jin Ha can be seen in the upcoming Apple TV adaptation of Min Jin Lee’s bestselling novel Pachinko. Additionally, he has been featured on FX’s limited-series Devs, HBO Max's Love Life, and NBC’s Jesus Christ Superstar: Live in Concert. Stage credits include the Chicago company of Hamilton: an American Musical in the role of Aaron Burr and the Broadway revival of David Henry Hwang’s M. Butterfly. Ha is an alumnus of the NYU Graduate Acting program.

Etgar Keret was born in Ramat Gan and now lives in Tel Aviv. A recipient of the French Chevalier des Arts et des Lettres, the Charles Bronfman Prize, and the Caméra d’Or at the Cannes Film Festival, he is the author of the memoir The Seven Good Years and story collections including Fly Already, The Bus Driver Who Wanted to Be God, The Nimrod Flipout, and Suddenly, a Knock on the Door. His work has been translated into over 45 languages and appeared in The New Yorker, The Wall Street Journal, The Paris Review, and The New York Times, among other publications.

Jason Mantzoukas is best known for his numerous television credits, including Parks and Recreation, The League, Transparent, I’m Sorry, Brooklyn Nine-Nine, The Good Place, Big Mouth, Legion, Dickinson, No Activity, and Solar Opposites. Film credits include The Dictator, Sleeping with Other People, The Disaster Artist, John Wick: Chapter Three - Parabellum, and the forthcoming Infinite. Mantzoukas co-hosts the film discussion podcast How Did This Get Made? He can currently be seen in Star Trek: Prodigy, Invincible, and Housebroken.

Fiona McFarlane is the author of the novel The Night Guest, winner of the Voss Literary Prize and the Glenda Adams Award for New Writing, and the short story collection The High Places, winner of the Dylan Thomas Prize and the Nita Kibble Literary Award. Her short stories have been published in The New Yorker, The Best Australian Short Stories, Southerly, and Zoetrope: All-Story, among other publications.

Simon Rich is a frequent contributor to The New Yorker. He has written for Saturday Night Live, Pixar, and The Simpsons and is the creator of the TV shows Man Seeking Woman and Miracle Workers, which he based on his books. His other collections include Ant Farm, Spoiled Brats, and Hits and Misses, which won the 2019 Thurber Prize for American Humor. His latest work, New Teeth, was published in July 2021.

Andy Richter is best known for his collaborations with Conan O’Brien on Late Night, The Tonight Show, and Conan. He was awarded two Writers Guild of America awards for his contributions to Late Night with Conan O’Brien. He has been featured in dozens of film and television roles, most recently, Type A, Santa Clarita Diet, Final Space, Black-ish, Fresh Off the Boat, Big Hero 6: The Series, American Dad!, Anidom Beyond, and Love, Victor. He currently hosts the Three Questions podcast.

CREDITS

“The Baby” by Simon Rich. From Hits and Misses (Little, Brown and Company, 2018). Copyright © 2018 by Simon Rich. Used by permission of Levine Greenberg Rostan Literary Agency.

“Buttony” by Fiona McFarlane, from The High Places (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2016). First appeared in The New Yorker (March 2016). Copyright © 2016 by Fiona McFarlane. Used by permission of Farrar, Straus and Giroux.

“Crumb Cake” by Etgar Keret, translated by Sondra Silverston, from McSweeney's (Issue 51, 2017). Copyright © 2017 by Etgar Keret. Used by permission of The Wylie Agency, LLC.