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Duncan Birmingham is a writer, TV producer, and filmmaker. As a writer, his television credits include Maron and Blunt Talk. His short fiction has appeared in the Mystery Tribune,Volume 1 Brooklyn, Joyland, and Maudlin House, among other publications. Birmingham’s debut story collection, The Cult in My Garage, was published in 2021. Most recently he wrote and directed his first feature film, Who Invited Them.

In a career spanning more than seventy years, Ray Bradbury (1920 - 2012) inspired generations of readers to dream, think, and create. A prolific author of hundreds of short stories and close to fifty books, as well as numerous poems, essays, operas, plays, teleplays, and screenplays, Bradbury was one of the most celebrated writers of our time. His groundbreaking works include Fahrenheit 451, The Martian Chronicles, The Illustrated Man, Dandelion Wine, and Something Wicked This Way Comes. He wrote the screenplay for John Huston's classic film adaptation of Moby Dick and was nominated for an Academy Award. He adapted sixty-five of his stories for television's The Ray Bradbury Theater and won an Emmy for his teleplay of The Halloween Tree. Bradbury was the recipient of the 2000 National Book Foundation Medal for Distinguished Contribution to American Letters, the 2004 National Medal of Arts, and the 2007 Pulitzer Prize Special Citation, among many honors.

Tate Donovan has appeared in more than 45 films, including Respect, Worth, Rocketman, The Upside, Manchester by the Sea, Argo, Good Night and Good Luck, Memphis Belle, Ethan Frome, Love Potion #9, Clean and Sober, and the title voice in Disney’s animated feature Hercules. His television credits include MacGyver, The Man in the High Castle, 24, Damages, The OC, and Friends. Donovan has appeared on Broadway in the Tony Award-winning productions of Good People, Amy’s View, and Picnic. He has also directed several episodes of Madam Secretary, Damages, Glee, Weeds, Gossip Girl, Nip/Tuck, The OC, and Bloodline, as well as the ESPN documentary Arthur and Johnnie about the tennis star Arthur Ashe, for which he won an Emmy Award.

Ivan Hernandez can currently be seen on HBO’s And Just Like That… His additional screen credits include Claws, NCIS, Criminal Minds, Scandal, Devious Maids, Law & Order: SVU, The Good Wife, and more. Onstage, he has performed in The Fantasticks, Into the Woods, The Capeman, The Most Happy Fella, Yank!, Zhivago, and on Broadway in Chicago and Dear Evan Hansen.

Javier Marías is an award-winning Spanish novelist. He is also a translator and columnist, as well as the current mythological king of Redonda. He was born in Madrid in 1951 and published his first novel at the age of nineteen. He has held academic posts in Spain, the US (he was a visiting professor at Wellesley College) and Britain, as a lecturer in Spanish Literature at Oxford University. He has been translated into 34 languages, and more than six million copies of his books have been sold worldwide. In 1997 he won the Nelly Sachs Award; the Comunidad de Madrid award in 1998; in 2000 the Grinzane Cavour Award, the Alberto Moravia Prize, and the Dublin IMPAC Award. He also won the Spanish National Translation Award in 1979 for his translation of Tristram Shandy in 1979. He was a professor at Oxford University and the Complutense of Madrid. He currently lives in Madrid.

Michaela Watkins is best known for her leading role on the Hulu series Casual and starring most recently in the comedy series The Unicorn on CBS. Recurring TV roles include Search Party, Big Mouth, Transparent, Enlightened, and New Girl, as well as starring on Trophy Wife for ABC. Additional film roles include Werewolves Within, Brittany Runs a Marathon, The Way Back, Sword of Trust, and as a cast member on Saturday Night Live. Watkins will appear in the forthcoming miniseries The Dropout and will star opposite Owen Wilson in the film Paint.

Meg Wolitzer is the New York Times bestselling author of The Female Persuasion, The Interestings, The Ten-Year Nap, and The Wife, which was adapted to film in 2018, starring Glenn Close and Jonathan Pryce. She was the guest editor of The Best American Short Stories 2017, and has also published books for young readers, mostly recently a picture book, Millions of Maxes. Wolitzer 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. She is excited to be the new host of the literary radio show and podcast Selected Shorts.

CREDITS

“A World Without Selfie Sticks” by Etgar Keret, originally published in McSweeney’s. Copyright © 2021 by Etgar Keret, used by permission of The Wylie Agency, LLC.

“On the Honeymoon” by Javier Marías, translated by Margaret Jull Costa. From When I Was Mortal by Javier Marias (New Directions, 2000). Used by permission of New Directions.

“The Cult in My Garage” by Duncan Birmingham, from The Cult in My Garage (Maudlin House, 2021). Copyright © 2021 by Duncan Birmingham. Used by permission of the author.