The New Yorker: The Writer's Voice - New Fiction from The New Yorker

New Yorker fiction writers read their stories.

Joyce Carol Oates Reads “Late Love”

Joyce Carol Oates reads her story “Late Love,” from the April 22 & 29, 2024, issue of the magazine. Oates, a winner of the National Humanities Medal and the Jerusalem Prize, among others, is the author of more than seventy books of fiction. A new novel, “Butcher,” and a story collection, “Flint Kill Creek,” will be published later this year.

04-15
53:11

Kevin Barry Reads “Finistère”

Kevin Barry reads his story “Finistère,” from the April 15, 2024, issue of the magazine. Barry is the author of six books of fiction, including the novel “City of Bohane,” for which he won the International Dublin Literary Award, and the story collection “That Old Country Music,” which came out in 2020. A new novel, “The Heart in Winter,” will be published in July.

04-08
29:34

Souvankham Thammavongsa Reads “Bozo”

Souvankham Thammavongsa reads her story “Bozo” from the April 8, 2024, issue of the magazine. Thammavongsa has published four volumes of poetry and the story collection “How to Pronounce Knife,” which won the Giller Prize in 2020.

04-01
24:38

Mohammed Naseehu Ali Reads “Allah Have Mercy”

Mohammed Naseehu Ali reads his story “Allah Have Mercy” from the April 1, 2024, issue of the magazine. Ali is the author of “The Prophet of Zongo Street,” a story collection, which came out in 2005. He teaches undergraduate fiction in N.Y.U.’s Creative Writing department.

03-25
55:30

Zach Williams Reads “Neighbors”

Zach Williams reads his story “Neighbors” from the March 25, 2024, issue of the magazine. Williams is a Jones Lecturer in Fiction at Stanford University. His début story collection, “Beautiful Days,” will be published in June.

03-18
31:30

Joseph O’Neill Reads “The Time Being”

Joseph O’Neill reads his story “The Time Being” from the March 18, 2024, issue of the magazine. O’Neill is the author of one story collection and four novels, including “Netherland,” which won the pen/Faulkner Award for Fiction, in 2009, and “The Dog.” A new novel, “Godwin,” will be published in June. 

03-11
34:30

Fiona McFarlane Reads “Hostel”

Fiona McFarlane reads her story “Hostel” from the March 11, 2024, issue of the magazine. McFarlane is the author of two novels and a story collection, “The High Places,” which was awarded the International Dylan Thomas Prize, in 2017. A new collection, “Highway Thirteen,” will be published in August.

03-04
28:47

Thomas Korsgaard Reads “The Spit of Him”

Thomas Korsgaard reads his story “The Spit of Him” from the March 4, 2024, issue of the magazine. Korsgaard is the author of three novels and two story collections, as well as several works for children. In 2021, at age twenty-six, he became the youngest writer ever to receive Denmark’s Golden Laurels prize.

02-26
34:41

Jamil Jan Kochai Reads “On the Night of the Khatam”

Jamil Jan Kochai reads his story “On the Night of the Khatam” from the February 26, 2024, issue of the magazine. Kochai is the author of the novel “99 Nights in Logar” and the collection “The Haunting of Hajji Hotak and Other Stories” which was a finalist for the National Book Award in 2022 and won the 2023 Aspen Words Literary Prize.

02-19
35:46

Addie Citchens Reads “That Girl”

Addie Citchens reads her story “That Girl,” from the February 12 & 19, 2024, issue of the magazine. Citchens is a Mississippi Delta-born, New Orleans-based writer of fiction and nonfiction. She has published work in the Oxford American and The Paris Review, among other places.

02-05
48:37

Patrick Langley Reads “Life with Spider”

Patrick Langley reads his story “Life with Spider,” from the February, 5, 2024, issue of the magazine. Langley is the author of two novels, “Arkady” and “The Variations,” which came out in the U.K. last year, and will be published in the U.S. on February 20th.

01-29
53:17

David Means Reads “Chance the Cat”

David Means reads his story “Chance the Cat,” from the January 22, 2024, issue of the magazine. Means is the author of the novel “Hystopia” and six story collections, including “Instructions for a Funeral” and “Two Nurses Smoking,” which was published in 2022.

01-15
38:53

Joy Williams Reads “The Beach House”

Joy Williams reads her story “The Beach House,” from the January 15, 2024, issue of the magazine. Williams, a winner of the Library of Congress Prize for American Fiction, is the author of five story collections, including “Ninety-Nine Stories of God” and “The Visiting Privilege: New and Collected Stories,” and five novels, such as “Harrow,” which was published in 2021.

01-08
29:21

Greg Jackson Reads “Wagner in the Desert”

On a special, archival New Year’s episode, Greg Jackson reads his story “Wagner in the Desert,” from the July 21, 2014, issue of the magazine, in which a group of old friends convene in Palm Springs, California, for the week between Christmas and New Year’s. Jackson, a winner of the National Book Foundation’s 5 Under 35 Award, is the author of the story collection “Prodigals” and the novel “The Dimensions of a Cave,” which was published in October, 2023.

01-01
43:29

Rivka Galchen Reads “Crown Heights North”

Rivka Galchen reads her story “Crown Heights North,” from the January 1 & 8, 2024, issue of the magazine. Galchen is the author of three books of fiction, including the story collection “American Innovations” and the novel “Everyone Knows Your Mother Is a Witch.”

12-25
26:51

Caleb Crain Reads “Keats at Twenty-Four”

Caleb Crain reads his story “Keats at Twenty-Four,” from the December 11, 2023, issue of the magazine. Crain is the author of one book of nonfiction and two novels, “Necessary Errors,” which was a finalist for the Lambda Literary Award, and “Overthrow,” which was published in 2019.

12-04
17:38

Teju Cole Reads “Incoming”

Teju Cole reads his story “Incoming,” which appears in the December 4, 2023, issue of the magazine. Cole, a winner of the PEN/Hemingway Award and the Windham Campbell Literature Prize, is a novelist, critic, curator, and essayist. His novel “Tremor” was published earlier this year and a new book, “Pharmakon,” a collection of prose pieces and photographs, will be published in 2024. 

11-27
21:47

Madeleine Thien Reads Yoko Ogawa

The story in The New Yorker’s November 27, 2023, issue is “Beauty Contest,” by Yoko Ogawa, translated from the Japanese by Steven Snyder. Ogawa was not able to read her story for The Writer’s Voice, but, on a recent episode of the New Yorker Fiction Podcast, the writer Madeleine Thien read and discussed Ogawa’s 2004 story “The Cafeteria in the Evening and a Pool in the Rain,” and we wanted to share that episode with you instead. We hope you enjoy it. 

11-20
01:13:06

Sheila Heti Reads “According to Alice”

Sheila Heti reads her story “According to Alice,” which appears in the November 20, 2023, issue of the magazine. Heti wrote this story in collaboration with a customizable chatbot on the Chai AI platform, which she began engaging in conversation in 2022. Heti is the author of seven books, including the novels “Motherhood,” which was short-listed for the Giller Prize, and “Pure Color,” which won the Governor General’s Award last year.

11-13
34:51

Clare Sestanovich Reads “Our Time Is Up”

Clare Sestanovich reads her story “Our Time Is Up,” which appears in the November 13, 2023, issue of the magazine. Sestanovich’s début story collection, “Objects of Desire,” which came out in 2021, was a finalist for the PEN Robert W. Bingham Prize, and she was named a “5 Under 35” honoree by the National Book Foundation in 2022. 

11-07
41:24

Elizabeth King

This one was really not for me. The story seemed so plodding and obvious and the writing was mediocre.

02-18 Reply

Elizabeth King

This is such an excellent story. Compelling storytelling, elegant writing, and characters and setting that had so much depth and leapt from the page. More from this author!

02-18 Reply

Sarah Kitty

I loved this story. Great to hear it in the writer's voice.

09-08 Reply

Ayn Carey

great story! so rare to hear an author who is also a superb narrator.

05-09 Reply

Ayn Carey

Cusk has written an essay and dressed it as a short story. a good one to skip.

04-23 Reply

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