A Little Friendly Advice

Katherine Damm’s short stories have appeared in Ploughshares, The Iowa Review, New England Review, and elsewhere. She holds an A.B. from Harvard College and an M.F.A. from the Programs in Writing at the University of California, Irvine. Originally from Philadelphia, she currently lives in New York with husband, son, and poodle, where she is an Assistant Professor of Creative Writing at Marymount Manhattan College.

Santino Fontana is known for his Outer Critics Circle, Drama Desk, and Tony Award–winning portrayal of Michael Dorsey/Dorothy Michaels in the Broadway production of Tootsie, and for voicing the character Prince Hans in Disney’s Academy Award–winning animated feature Frozen. With Encores!, he has starred in off-Broadway productions of God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater; 1776; and Zorba. On Broadway, he has starred in The Importance of Being Earnest, for which he won a Clarence Derwent Award; Brighton Beach Memoirs (Drama Desk Award); Act One; Billy Elliot; Cinderella (Tony nomination); and Hello, Dolly! His role in the Classic Stage Company’s revival of I Can Get it for You Wholesale earned him Lucille Lortel and Drama Desk Award nominations. Fontana’s onscreen credits include Grotesquerie, The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel, Crazy Ex-Girlfriend, Sisters, Shades of Blue, Mozart in the Jungle, Submissions Only, Off the Menu, Fosse/Verdon, and Evil, with recent roles in Lost & Found in Cleveland and his film directing debut with the short Death Wish.

Tyler Fowler is a nationally touring comedian who expertly weaves relatable anecdotes about marriages, kids and jobs—none of which he has—to create a show you won't want to miss. His debut album, Friends With 401(k) Benefits, premiered at #1 on iTunes and Top 10 on the Billboard Comedy Charts, and was followed by a 30-minute special with Drybar Comedy titled Little Spoon.

Meghana Indurti is a first-generation South Asian stand-up comedian and writer who got her start in Chicago and is currently based in LA. She is a humor writer for The New Yorker and Reductress and a headline contributor for The Onion. She was named Chicago Reader’s People to Know in 2016, selected as a StandUp NBC Semi-Finalist in 2017 and as a semi-finalist in the Boston Comedy Festival in 2016, and featured in the NBC Breakout Comedy Festival in 2019. Indurti is a regular at Laugh Factory Chicago and Zanies. She co-produced and hosted The Big One, which ranked as one of the best stand-up shows by The LA Times. She is currently a writer’s assistant for a Riz Ahmed production at Amazon, writing a feature for a Shyam Madiraju adaptation, and working on a collection of autobiographical humor essays for the Massie & McQuilkin Literary Agency. Her short film, Mango Chile Pie, is forthcoming.

Mira Jacob is a novelist, memoirist, illustrator, and cultural critic. Her graphic memoir, Good Talk: A Memoir in Conversations, was shortlisted for the National Book Critics Circle Award and longlisted for the PEN Open Book Award, and her novel, The Sleepwalker’s Guide to Dancing, was named one of the best books of the year by Kirkus Reviews, Boston Globe, Goodreads, Bustle, and The Millions.

Jane Kaczmarek is best known for her role as Lois on Malcolm in the Middle, for which she received 7 consecutive Emmy nominations as well as nominations for the Golden Globe and SAG Awards. A graduate of the University of Wisconsin and Yale School of Drama, Kaczmarek made her television debut on The Paper Chase and Hill Street Blues. On stage, she has appeared on Broadway and off, and for 6 seasons at the Williamstown Theatre Festival. Her recent theater credits include Long Day's Journey Into Night with Alfred Molina and Our Town with Deaf West Theatre. Kaczmarek’s favorite job is raising her three kids and reading/hosting Selected Shorts across America.

Rita Wolf has been featured in Edward Albee's A Delicate Balance with the Transport Group and Out of Time at The Public Theater, both co-productions with The National Asian American Theatre Company; and The Michaels and What Happened? The Michaels Abroad, written and directed by Richard Nelson, at The Public Theater and Hunter College. Additional theater credits include An Ordinary Muslim at New York Theatre Workshop, The American Pilot at Manhattan Theatre Club, for which she was nominated for a Drama Desk Award, and the premiere of Tony Kushner's Homebody/Kabul at New York Theatre Workshop and BAM. Last spring, Wolf was a Beinecke Fellow at the David Geffen School of Drama at Yale University while appearing in Caryl Churchill's play Escaped Alone.

Meg Wolitzer is the New York Times bestselling author of The Female Persuasion, The Interestings, The Ten-Year Nap, and The Wife, among other books. She was the guest editor of The Best American Short Stories 2017, and 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. Wolitzer hosts the radio show and podcast of Selected Shorts.

CREDITS

“Death by Printer” was commissioned by Symphony Space for the collection Small Odysseys: Selected Shorts Presents 35 New Stories, edited by Hannah Tinti, published by Algonquin Books. © 2022 by Symphony Space.

“The Happiest Day of Your Life,” by Katherine Damm, from The Best American Short Stories 2024 (Mariner Books, 2024). First appeared in The Iowa Review (Volume 52, Issue 2/Issue 3, Winter 2022/2023). Copyright © 2023 by Katherine Damm. Adapted version of the text used by permission of the author.

“Relationship Advice from Your Aunt Who Has Been Divorced Six Times,” by Meghana Indurti and Tyler Fowler, from The New Yorker (March 3, 2022). Copyright © 2022 by Meghana Indurti and Tyler Fowler. Used by permission of the authors.