Rachel Heng Reads "A Very Safe Place"

Kevin Barry reads his story “Chuck Murphy’s Last Run,” from the October 19, 2026, issue of the magazine. Barry is the author of seven books of fiction, including the story collection “That Old Country Music” and the novels “City of Bohane,” for which he won the International Dublin Literary Award, and “The Heart in Winter,” which came out in 2024. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Rachel Heng reads her story “A Very Safe Place,” from the October 12, 2026, issue of the magazine. Heng is the author of the novels “Suicide Club” and “The Great Reclamation,” which won the New American Voices Award in 2023. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Sarah Anderson reads her story “Dark Horse,” from the September 28, 2026, issue of the magazine. Anderson is a graduate of the Helen Zell Writers’ Program at the University of Michigan, where she won two Hopwood Awards. Her début novel, “Fallow,” was published this month. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Joyce Carol Oates reads her story “Lost Child,” from the September 21, 2026, issue of the magazine. A winner of the National Humanities Medal and the Jerusalem Prize, among others, Oates is the author of more than seventy books of fiction, including the novel “Fox” and the story collections “Flint Kill Creek” and “The Frenzy.” Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hisham Matar reads his story “New Shoes,” from the September 14, 2026, issue of the magazine. Matar is the author of five books, including the Pulitzer Prize-winning memoir “The Return” and the novels “Anatomy of a Disappearance” and “My Friends,” which won the 2025 National Book Critics Circle Award for fiction. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Helen Simpson reads her story “Lub Dub Lub Dub Lub Dub,” from the September 7, 2026, issue of the magazine. A winner of the American Academy of Arts and Letters’s E. M. Forster Award, Simpson is the author of seven short-story collections, including “Four Bare Legs in a Bed,” which won the Somerset Maugham Award in 1990, and “Cockfosters,” which was published in 2025.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Madhuri Vijay reads her story “Hidden Life,” from the August 24 & 31, 2026, issue of the magazine. Vijay is the author of the novel “The Far Field,” which won India’s J.C.B. Prize for Literature in 2019. Her second novel, “The Festival,” will be published in 2028. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Rachel Yoder reads her story “The Promise,” from the August 10, 2026, issue of the magazine. Yoder is the author of the novel “Nightbitch,” which was published in 2021. A finalist for the PEN/Hemingway Award for début fiction, it was adapted for the screen in 2024. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Sheila Heti reads her story “Earthly Delights,” from the August 3, 2026, issue of the magazine. Heti is the author of eleven books, including the novel “Pure Colour,” which won the Governor General’s Award in 2022, and “Alphabetical Diaries,” which was published in 2024. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Min Jin Lee reads her story “Testing,” from the July 27, 2026, issue of the magazine. Lee is the author of the novels “Free Food for Millionaires” and “Pachinko,” which was a National Book Award finalist in 2017. Her third novel, “American Hagwon,” from which this week’s story was adapted, will be published in September. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices