In 2025, Selected Shorts celebrated Jane Austen’s birth 250 years ago, with works by, and inspired by, the enduring romance novelist. Ann Harada performs an early Austen piece, “Edgar and Emma.” Sophie Carmen-Jones reads a letter from Austen to a mentor, James Stanier Clarke. Then things get playful in the T.C. Boyle parody “I Dated Jane Austen,” performed by Wyatt Cenac. And Hugh Dancy reads from an Austen classic, “Persuasion.” Hosted by Meg Wolitzer.
Jane Austen (1775 – 1817) was an English novelist and the author of Sense and Sensibility, Pride and Prejudice, Mansfield Park, Emma, and Northanger Abbey and Persuasion, which were published posthumously. She left two earlier compositions, a short epistolary novel, Lady Susan, and an unfinished novel, The Watsons. At the time of her death, she was working on the novel Sanditon, a fragmentary draft of which survives. Her books have been adapted into numerous films and television series, and they have served as inspiration for countless prequels, sequels, and reimaginings.
T.C. Boyle is a novelist, short story writer, and regular contributor to The New Yorker. He has published nineteen novels, including World’s End and The Tortilla Curtain, and twelve collections of short stories. A Distinguished Professor of English Emeritus at the University of Southern California, his latest novel, No Way Home, will be published this month.
Sophie Carmen-Jones is currently starring as Velma Kelly in Chicago on Broadway. On screen, Sophie’s credits include One Day, Dark Money, White Gold, Cleaning Up, and Unforgotten, as well as films such as The Little Mermaid, Kiss of the Spiderwoman, Death on the Nile, and Rocketman. She will next appear in Steven Spielberg’s next (untitled) film.
Her theater credits include Nini in Moulin Rouge! on Broadway and in the original West End cast, Francine in Jersey Boys, Viva Forever!, and Wicked.
Wyatt Cenac is an Emmy Award–winning comedian known for the HBO late-night comedy docuseries Wyatt Cenac’s Problem Areas. He's also appeared on People of the Earth, aka Wyatt Cenac, and The Daily Show, where he served as a correspondent and writer from 2008 to 2012. He’s released four stand up albums: 2011's Comedy Person, 2014's Grammy-nominated Brooklyn, and 2016's Furry Dumb Fighter and One Angry Night in November. On television, Wyatt wrote for Mike Judge's King of the Hill, served as a consultant for South Park, and wrote an animated musical starring Steve Urkel . . . Yes, Steve Urkel. Cenac has voiced characters on the animated shows Bob’s Burgers, Archer, BoJack Horseman, The Venture Brothers, Fanboyand Chum Chum, and The Great North. Every now and again he pops up in a film, most notably Barry Jenkins’ Medicine for Melancholy.
Hugh Dancy played Will Graham in Hannibal, for which he earned a Saturn Award and two Critics’ Choice nominations. Additional film and television credits include Black Hawk Down, Ella Enchanted, King Arthur, Adam, the television mini-series Elizabeth I, for which he received an Emmy nomination, Blood and Chocolate, Martha Marcy May Marlene, The Big C, Deadline Gallipoli, The Path, Late Night, Homeland, The Good Fight, and Downton Abbey: A New Era. On stage, he starred off-Broadway in The Pride and Apologia, and on Broadway in Venus in Fur and the revival of Journey’s End. Dancy currently stars in the reboot of Law & Order and is the voice of Otto Octavius in the animated series Your Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man.
Ann Harada is best known for playing Christmas Eve in the Broadway and London productions of Avenue Q and stepsister Charlotte in Rodgers + Hammerstein’s Cinderella. Additional Broadway credits include Into the Woods, 9 to 5, the revival of Les Misérables, Seussical, and M. Butterfly. Film and television credits include Sisters, Admission, Hope Springs, The Art of Getting By, Feel, The Jim Gaffigan Show, Happiness, Smash, Lipstick Jungle, 30 Rock, Blue Bloods, The Flight Attendant, Schmigadoon!, Disenchanted, and Jerry and Marge Go Large.
Meg Wolitzer is the New York Times bestselling author of The Female Persuasion, The Interestings, The Ten-Year Nap, The Position, and The Wife, among other novels. A musical of The Interestings is in development. Wolitzer was the guest editor of The Best American Short Stories 2017, and also writes books for young readers. She is a faculty member in the Creative Writing Program at Stony Brook University, where she co-founded and co-directs BookEnds, a yearlong intensive for emerging novelists.
CREDITS
The works of Jane Austen are in the public domain.
“I Dated Jane Austen,” by T.C. Boyle, from T.C. Boyle Stories (Viking, 1998). Originally appeared in The Georgia Review (Summer 1979). Copyright © 1979, 1998 by T.C. Boyle. Reprinted by permission of Georges Borchardt, Inc. on behalf of the author. All rights reserved.
