The Penguin Book of the Modern American Short Story Audiobook

About the Authors

Jhumpa Lahiri is a London-born American author of numerous works of fiction and nonfiction who has won more than a dozen awards and medals, including the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction for her debut short-story collection, Interpreter of Maladies. Among her other honors are the PEN/Hemingway Award, the Frank O’Connor International Short Story Award, the Premio Gregor von Rezzori, the DSC Prize for South Asian Literature, the Premio Internazionale Viareggio-Versilia, the Addison Metcalf Award, and a National Humanities Medal. She is a professor of creative writing at Princeton University.

Ursula K. Le Guin (1929–2018) was an American author of novels, children’s books, and short stories, mainly in the genres of fantasy and science fiction. She has also written poetry, literary criticism, and essays. She was widely recognized as one of the greatest science fiction writers in the history of the genre. She won both the Hugo and Nebula Awards on several occasions, as well as the National Book Award, the PEN/Malamud Award, and many other honors and prizes. In 2014, she was awarded the National Book Foundation Medal for Distinguished Contribution to American Letters.

Sandra Cisneros is an American writer best known for her acclaimed first novel The House on Mango Street, and her subsequent short story collection, Woman Hollering Creek and Other Stories. Her work experiments with literary forms and investigates emerging subject positions, which Cisneros attributes to growing up in a context of cultural hybridity and economic inequality that endowed her with unique stories to tell. She is the recipient of numerous awards, including a National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship, and is regarded as a key figure in Chicana literature.

Stephen King has written more than sixty books, many hitting the #1 spot on the New York Times bestsellers list. He has won the World Fantasy Award, several Bram Stoker Awards, and the O. Henry Award for his story “The Man in the Black Suit.” He is the 2003 recipient of the National Book Foundation Medal for Distinguished Contribution to American Letters, and in 2007 he received the Grand Master Award from the Mystery Writers of America. His epic works The Dark Tower and It are the basis for major motion pictures.

Tobias Wolff is the author of several previous books and the editor of a growing list of anthologies. He has received numerous awards, among them the PEN/Malamud Award for excellence in the art of the short story. He lives in Northern California and teaches English and creative writing at Stanford University.

Ted Chiang is a celebrated science fiction writer and the author of numerous short stories, including “Exhalation,” which won the Hugo, British Science Fiction, and Locus awards. He is also the author of the novellas The Lifecycle of Software Objects and The Merchant and the Alchemist’s Gate. Ted lives near Seattle.

Colleen Delany has been a sparkling jewel in the crown of Washington’s vastly talented acting community for thirty-seven days now and will confidently challenge to a fierce best out of three in “paper-rock-scissors” anyone wishing to topple her from that lofty perch. Primarily a stage actress,—having played roles at Shakespeare Theatre Company, Goodman Theatre, Arena Stage, Signature Theatre, Folger Shakespeare Library, Studio Theatre, Olney Theatre, Woolly Mammoth, Theater J, Washington Stage Guild, Theater of the First Amendment, and Source Theatre, among others—Ms. Delany does a you-name-it of various acting jobs, including audiobook narration.

Raymond Carver (1938–1988) was born in Clatskanie, Oregon. His first collection of stories, Will You Please Be Quiet, Please (a National Book Award nominee in 1977), was followed by What We Talk About When We Talk About Love, Cathedral (nominated for the Pulitzer Prize in 1984), and Where I’m Calling From.

About the Narrators

Cassandra Campbell has won multiple Audie Awards, Earphones Awards, and the prestigious Odyssey Award for narration. She was been named a “Best Voice” by AudioFile magazine and in 2018 was inducted in Audible’s inaugural Narrator Hall of Fame.

Dominic Hoffman, winner of numerous AudioFile Earphones Awards for narration, has been named an AudioFile Golden Voice. He is a Los Angeles–based actor of stage, screen, and television. He has appeared in such television shows as The Shield, NYPD Blue, and The Jamie Foxx Show. He attended the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art as well as the American Conservatory Theater.

Erin Bennett is an Earphones Award–winning narrator and a stage actress who played Carlie Roberts in the BBC radio drama Torchwood: Submission. She can be heard on several video games. Regional theater appearances include the Intiman, Pasadena Playhouse, Arizona Theatre Company, A Noise Within, Laguna Playhouse, and the Getty Villa. She trained at Boston University and the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art.

George Saunders is the #1 New York Times bestselling author of ten books, including Lincoln in the Bardo, which won the Man Booker Prize; Tenth of December, a finalist for the National Book Award; and others. He teaches in the creative writing program at Syracuse University.

Kim Mai Guest is an award-winning voice actor for audiobooks and video games. She can also be heard on television shows, such as G.I. Joe: Renegades, Batman: the Brave and the Bold, and Avatar, and in movies such asChill Out Scooby Doo and Dead Space: Aftermath. Her video game work includes Metal Gear Solid, Final Fantasy, and The Lord of the Rings.

Mark Feuerstein is the star of USA Network’s Royal Pains. He has also been on such television shows as The West Wing, 3 Lbs, and Good Morning, Miami. In addition, he can be seen in such films as What Women Want, The Muse, Practical Magic, In Her Shoes, and Defiance, starring Daniel Craig, and he made his Broadway debut in Alfred Uhry’s The Last Night of Ballyhoo.

Cassandra Morris has received critical acclaim for her voice-over work from Publishers Weekly and AudioFile magazine, earning a dozen Earphones Awards and twice been a finalist for the prestigious Audie Award for best narration. Her voice has also been heard on television in commercial campaigns and numerous Nickelodeon and Disney products. She is the voice of many cartoon characters, including Leo and Luna in Yu-Gi-Oh, Carrie in Barbie: A Fairy Secret, Nathan in Pokémon, and Lola in Angelo Rules.

Scott Brick, an acclaimed voice artist, screenwriter, and actor, has performed on film, television, and radio. He attended UCLA and spent ten years in a traveling Shakespeare company. Passionate about the spoken word, he has narrated a wide variety of audiobooks. winning won more than fifty AudioFile Earphones Awards and several of the prestigious Audie Awards. He was named a Golden Voice by AudioFile magazine and the Voice of Choice for 2016 by Booklist magazine.

Frankie Corzo is a film and voice-over actress and audiobook narrator. She obtained a BA degree in theater studies from Montclair State University.

Deepti Gupta, fluent in Hindi, Urdu, and English, has an international career spread across India, Singapore, Pakistan, and the United States. As a narrator she brings an open and curious perspective to the author’s work. As an actress she has earned praise from the New York Times for her performance in the feature film Walkaway and also stars in Record/Play (a sci-fi love story) which was an official selection at Sundance 2013.

John Freeman is the editor of Freeman’s, a literary annual of new writing, and executive editor at Alfred A. Knopf. His books include How to Read a Novelist and Dictionary of the Undoing, as well as Tales of Two Americas and Tales of Two Planets. He is also the author of two poetry collections, Maps and The Park. His work is translated into more than twenty languages and has appeared in the New Yorker, Paris Review, and New York Times. The former editor of Granta, he teaches writing at New York University.

Laurie Keller is the acclaimed author-illustrator of Do Unto Otters; Arnie, the Doughnut; and The Scrambled States of America, among numerous others. She grew up in Muskegon, Michigan, and always loved to draw, paint, and write stories. She earned a BFA at Kendall College of Art and Design, then worked at Hallmark as a greeting card illustrator for over seven years, until one night she got an idea for a children’s book. She quit her job, moved to New York City, and had soon published her first book. She loved living in New York, but she has now returned to her home state, where she lives in a little cottage in the woods on the shore of Lake Michigan.