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This program features three stories by American women. The first, Debra Weinstein’s “What is Poetry,” was part of a special Symphony Space evening honoring the authors of Random House, and is in fact an excerpt from her first novel, APPRENTICE TO THE FLOWER POET Z The title of this chapter is fitting, as Debra Weinstein writes both poetry and prose, and has been awarded both an NEA Literature Fellowship for poetry and a New York State Foundation for the Arts Creative Writing Fellowship for Fiction. Her volume of poetry is called RODENT ANGEL. A Symphony Space regular, and radio icon for followers of Tom Lopez’ “Ruby: Intergallatic Gumshoe series,” Laura Esterman, is the reader.

Our second writer on this program, Linda Pastan, is also both a poet and a prose artist, with eleven published volumes of verse to her credit. She is also a former Poet Laureate of the State of Maryland. Blair Brown, whose many stage and screen credits Tom Stoppard’s “Arcadia” and “The Astronaut’s Wife,” reads Pastan’s musing, “The City.”

The final story in this program is another powerful exploration of human relations by Edith Wharton stories, one of those presented during SELECTED SHORTS’ summer visits to her historic home, The Mount, in Lenox Massachusetts. This sharply drawn Wharton drama, called “The Reckoning,” was read by Brenda Wehle, a former member of the Guthrie Theatre Company whose television credits include featured roles on Jack and Bobby, Crossing Jordan, and Boston Legal. She has most recently appeared in The Williamstown Theatre Festival’s revival of Freidrich Durrenmatt’s “The Physicists.”

Debra Weinstein, "What Is Poetry?," read by Laura Esterman Linda Pastan, "The City," read by Blair Brown Edith Wharton, "The Reckoning," read by Brenda Wehle

For additional works featured on SELECTED SHORTS, please visit Symphony Space