Clare Beams is the author of the novel The Illness Lesson and the story collection We Show What We Have Learned, which won the Bard Prize and was a Kirkus Best Debut of 2016, as well as a finalist for the PEN/Robert W. Bingham Prize, the New York Public Library's Young Lions Fiction Award, and the Shirley Jackson Award. With her husband and two daughters, she lives in Pittsburgh, where she teaches creative writing, most recently at Carnegie Mellon University and the Pittsburgh Center for the Arts. Her latest novel, The Garden, was published in 2024.

Jocelyn Nicole Johnson is the author of My Monticello, a fiction debut that was called "a masterly feat" by the New York Times, and winner of the Library of Virginia Fiction Award, the Weatherford Award, the Balcones Fiction Prize, and the Lillian Smith Award, as well as a finalist for the Kirkus Fiction Prize, the National Book Critics Circle Leonard Award, the LA Times Debut Seidenbaum Prize, and was long-listed for a Pen/Faulkner Fiction Award and the Story Prize. My Monticello was also chosen as the Route 1 Reads for Virginia. Johnson has been a fellow at Tin House, Hedgebrook, and the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts. Her writing has appeared in Guernica, The Guardian, Kweli Journal, Joyland, Lit Hub, and elsewhere. Her short story “Control Negro” was anthologized in The Best American Short Stories, guest edited by Roxane Gay and read live by LeVar Burton. A veteran public school art teacher, Johnson lives and writes in Charlottesville, Virginia.

Ben Loory’s first collection, Stories for Nighttime and Some for the Day, was a selection of the Barnes & Noble Discover Great New Writers Program. His second collection, Tales of Falling and Flying, was named a Favorite Book of the Year by the staff of The Paris Review and one of the 50 Best Fantasy Books of All Time by Esquire magazine. Loory’s fables and tales have appeared in The New Yorker, BOMB Magazine, Fairy Tale Review, and Electric Literature, and been heard on This American Life and at WORDTheatre. He lives and teaches short story writing in Los Angeles.

Demetri Martin is a comedian, actor, writer, director, cartoonist, filmmaker, and musician. He was a contributor to The Daily Show, serving as the Senior Youth Correspondent from 2005 to 2008. From 2009 – 2010, he hosted and starred in the Comedy Central sketch series Important Things with Demetri Martin. Martin has appeared in several films, including Contagion, Taking Woodstock, In a World, and Weird: The Al Yankovic Story, and he made his directorial debut with Dean, in which he also starred. Martin voiced the role of Ice Bear in Cartoon Network's franchise We Bare Bears and is currently the narrator of its prequel spinoff, We Baby Bears. Martin’s comedy albums and specials include These Are Jokes, Important Things with Demetri Martin, and Demetri Martin. Person, and Demetri Deconstructed. He is the author of This Is a Book, Point Your Face at This: Drawings, and If It’s Not Funny It’s Art.

CREDITS

Fruit Vendor (Diary Excerpts)” by Demetri Martin, from This Is a Book (Grand Central Publishing, 2011). Copyright © 2011 by Demetri Martin. Used by permission of Levine, Greenberg, Rostan Literary Agency.

“The White Bird of the Forest,” by Ben Loory, first published in TriQuarterly (Issue 164, Summer & Fall 2023) and forthcoming in How to Get to the Magic Mountain. Copyright © 2023 by Ben Loory. Used by permission of the author.

“Granna,” by Clare Beams, from We Show What We Have Learned & Other Stories (Lookout Books, 2016). First published in Ecotone (Volume 9, Number 2, Spring/Summer 2014). Copyright © 2014 by Clare Beams. Adapted version of the text used by permission of the author.

Symphony Space

Symphony Space Staff

Jennifer Brennan Director of Literary Programs

Drew Richardson Lead Producer of Literary Programs

Vivienne Woodward Senior Producer of Literary Programs

Mary Shimkin Director of Broadcast & Literary Initiatives

Sarah Montague Selected Shorts Radio Producer

Miles B. Smith Selected Shorts Recording Engineer

Matthew Love Consultant for Literary Programs

Magdalene Wrobleski Program Associate, Literature and Education

Diana Juarez Literary Intern

Zeni Bollock Literary Intern

Selected Shorts is supported by the Dungannon Foundation, creator of The Rea Award for the Short Story.

Symphony Space’s season of programming is also made possible by the generous support of the Seedlings Foundation, Howard Gilman Foundation, The Shubert Foundation, Blanchette Hooker Rockefeller Fund, Charina Endowment Fund, Charles D. Fleischman Charitable Trust, Susan Bay Nimoy, The Isambard Kingdom Brunel Society of North America, PECO Foundation, Coastal Community Foundation of South Carolina, Axe-Houghton Foundation, Joseph and Joan Cullman Foundation, Jody and John Arnhold and the Arnhold Foundation, The Grodzins Fund, and the Seedtime Fund.

Symphony Space thanks our generous supporters, including our Board of Directors, Producers Circle, and members, who make our programs possible with their annual support.

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Alliance Artist Management 5030 Broadway, Suite 812, New York NY 10034