Marie-Helene Bertino is the author of the novels Beautyland, Parakeet, a New York Times Editor’s Choice, 2 A.M.. at The Cat’s Pajamas, and the short story collection Safe as Houses. Awards include the O. Henry Prize, the Pushcart Prize, the Iowa Short Fiction Award, and the Frank O’Connor International Short Story Fellowship in Cork, Ireland. She has taught for NYU, The New School, and Institute for American Indian Arts. She currently teaches in the Creative Writing program at Yale University. “Viola in Midwinter” will appear in her second short story collection, forthcoming in 2025.
Melora Hardin starred in Amazon’s Transparent in her Emmy-nominated role as Tammy Cashman, as Jacqueline Carlyle in Freeform’s The Bold Type, and is recognized worldwide as Jan Levinson from NBC’s The Office. Most recently, Hardin starred onstage alongside Robert Downey Jr. in McNEAL at Lincoln Center. Her extensive movie credits include Golden Vanity, Clock, 17 Again, Hannah Montana: The Movie, 27 Dresses, The Hot Chick, Absolute Power, Love, Classified, and You, which she also directed. A professional actor since the age of six, Hardin has appeared on TV favorites such as Little House on the Prairie, The Love Boat, Magnum P.I., Friends, Gilmore Girls, The Blacklist, Scandal, A Million Little Things, and Monk. Hardin reprised her role as Trudy Monk in the Golden Globe and Critics Choice–nominated movie Mr. Monk's Last Case. She is also a collage artist and has turned her work into a line of wallpaper, Storyboards by Melora Hardin, and more recently, Drama Scarves, which can be found at www.Melora.com, @storyboardsbymelorahardin, and @MeloraDHardin.
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, The Position, and The Wife. She is a faculty member in the Creative Writing and Literature Program at The Lichtenstein Center at Stony Brook University, where she co-founded and co-directs BookEnds, a one-year, non-credit intensive for emerging novelists. Wolitzer, who was the guest editor of The Best American Short Stories 2017, is the radio and podcast host of Symphony Space’s Selected Shorts.
CREDITS
“The Summer Reading List,” by Meg Wolitzer, from Summer (Addison Wesley, 1990). Copyright © 1990 by Meg Wolitzer. Used by permission of the author.
“Viola in Mid-Winter,” by Marie-Helene Bertino, from The Best American Short Stories 2024 (Mariner Books, 2024). First appeared in Bennington Review (Issue 12, December 2023). Copyright © 2023 by Marie-Helene Bertino. Adapted version of the text used by permission of William Morris Endeavor Entertainment, LLC and the author.
