Ann Beattie has been included in five O. Henry Prize Collections, The Best American Short Stories, and The Best American Short Stories of the Century. She is the recipient of the PEN/Malamud Award for achievement in the short story. In 2005, she received the Rea Award for the Short Story. The former Edgar Allan Poe Professor of Literature and Creative Writing at the University of Virginia, she is a member of The American Academy of Arts and Letters and of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. Her most recent collection, Onlookers, was published in 2023.
Tess Gallagher, the author of eleven books of poetry, lives and writes in her hometown of Port Angeles, Washington, and in her cottage in County Sligo, Ireland. She received a Lifetime Achievement Award for her poetry from the Foundation of Rome in 2023. She is the only American to have been so honored. Her most recent poetry collection is Is, Is Not, published by Graywolf Press. Gallagher participated in Birdman and Shorts Cuts, films centered on the work of her late husband Raymond Carver’s stories. Her own collection, The Man from Kinvara: Selected Stories, published in 2009, is the basis for film episodes in development. She is the first Writer-in-Residence for Field Hall Arts and Events Center.
Dion Graham, from HBO’s The Wire, also narrates The First 48 on A&E. An award-winning and critically acclaimed actor and narrator, his film and television credits include The Blacklist, Madam Secretary, the Law & Order franchise, and Malcolm X, as well as voice work with the Star Wars video game franchise, The Atlanta Child Murders, Art of the Heist, and American Experience on PBS. Graham’s extensive stage credits include performances at the Roundabout; Circle in the Square; Lincoln Center; The Kennedy Center in Washington, DC; the Edinburgh International Festival; The Royal National Theater in London; and on Broadway. His performances have been praised as thoughtful and compelling, vivid and full of life.
Kirsten Vangsness is best known for playing the bespectacled tech kitten Penelope Garcia on Criminal Minds, which is on its 18th season for Paramount+ and as Bigelow McFigglehorn on the new Wizards Beyond Waverly Place on Disney. Kirsten has just penned her third solo piece, Outdated, which will be opening early 2025, and she is the host of BITS, a monthly performance salon in Hollywood. She LOVES reading for Selected Shorts.
Meg Wolitzer is the New York Times bestselling author of The Female Persuasion, The Interestings, The Ten-Year Nap, and The Wife, which was adapted to film in 2018, starring Glenn Close and Jonathan Pryce. She was the guest editor of The Best American Short Stories 2017, and has also published books for young readers, mostly recently a picture book, Millions of Maxes. Wolitzer is a faculty member in the MFA program at Stony Brook Southampton, where she co-founded and co-directs BookEnds, a one-year, non-credit intensive in the novel.
CREDITS
“Mr. Woodriff’s Neckties,” by Tess Gallagher, from At the Owl Woman Saloon (Scribner, 1997). Copyright © 1997 by Tess Gallagher. Used by permission of The Wylie Agency, LLC.
“Hoodie in Xanadu,” by Ann Beattie, from The Accomplished Guest (Scribner, 2017). First published in The Paris Review (Issue 193, Summer 2010). Copyright © 2010 by Ann Beattie. Adapted version of the text used by permission of Janklow & Nesbit.
