All Episodes
Why Is This Good? — 181 episodes
179: “Roy Spivey” by Miranda July
178: “A Small Good Thing” by Raymond Carver
177: “2BR02B” by Kurt Vonnegut
176: “A Worn Path” by Eudora Welty
175: “Foster” by Claire Keegan
174: “In the Heart of the Heart of the Country” by William H Gass
173: “Teenage Wasteland” by Anne Tyler
172: “The Necklace” by Guy de Maupassant
171: The Wedding Party by Taylor Koekkoek
170: “Eveline” by James Joyce
169: “A Millionaire’s Girl” by Zelda Fitzgerald
168: “The Catbird Seat” by James Thurber
167: “The Grasshopper and the Bell Cricket” by Yasunari Kawabata
166: “Why Don’t We Just Kill the Kid in the Omelas Hole” by Isabel J. Kim
165: “The Nine Billion Names of God” by Arthur C. Clarke
164: “Hollow” by Breece D’J Pancake
163: “The Enormous Radio” by John Cheever
162: “A Conversation with My Father” by Grace Paley
161: “A Manual for Cleaning Women” by Lucia Berlin
160: “Everything That Rises Must Converge” by Flannery O’Connor
159: “Wood Sorrel House” by Zach Williams
158: “The Garden of Forking Paths” by Jorge Luis Borges
157: “Found Objects” by Jennifer Egan
156: “Two Words” by Isabel Allende
155: “The Piano Teacher’s Pupil” by William Trevor
154: “Nine Lives” by Ursula K. Le Guin
153: “The Veldt” by Ray Bradbury
152: “How to Be an Other Woman” by Lorrie Moore
151: “The Daemon Lover” by Shirley Jackson
150: “Babylon Revisited” by F. Scott Fitzgerald
149: “The Martyr” by Mary Gordon
148: “A Visit of Charity” by Eudora Welty
147: “We Can Remember It for You Wholesale” by Philip K. Dick
146: “Uncle Wiggily in Connecticut” by J. D. Salinger
145: “Unaccompanied Sonata” by Orson Scott Card
144: “The Werewolf” by Angela Carter
143: “Zombie” by Joyce Carol Oates
142: “The Wind” by Lauren Groff
141: “These Golden Cities” by K. David Wade
140: “Non-Zero Probabilities” by N. K. Jemisin
139: “A Telephone Call” by Dorothy Parker
138: Curtis Sittenfeld vs ChatGPT
137: “The Husband Stitch” by Carmen Maria Machado
136: “The Celestial Omnibus” by E. M. Forster
135: “The Complete” by Gabriel Smith
134: “Sour Milk Girls” by Erin Roberts
133: “An Outpost of Progress” by Joseph Conrad
132: “The Island of the Immortals” by Ursula K Le Guin
131: “Jeffty is Five” by Harlan Ellison
130: “Barn Burning” by William Faulkner
129: “Separating” by John Updike
128: “It’s Such a Beautiful Day” by Isaac Asimov
127: “The Frog King” by Garth Greenwell
126: “The Destructors” by Graham Greene
125: “Button, Button” by Richard Matheson
124: “Civil Peace” by Chinua Achebe
123: “Woman at Exhibition” by E. Lily Yu
122: “Car Crash While Hitchhiking” by Denis Johnson
121: “When Stars Collide” by Ottessa Moshfegh
120: “The Dead” by James Joyce
119: “The Bear Came Over the Mountain” by Alice Munro
118: “The Library of Babel” by Jorge Luis Borges
117: “Drive My Car” by Haruki Murakami
116: “Harrison Bergeron” by Kurt Vonnegut
115: “The Cartographer Wasps and the Anarchist Bees” by E. Lily Yu
114: “The Man Who Lost the Sea” by Theodore Sturgeon
113: “And of Clay Are We Created” by Isabel Allende
112: “Spring in Fialta” by Vladimir Nabokov
111: “The Paper Menagerie” by Ken Liu
110: “This Way for the Gas Ladies and Gentlemen” by Tadeusz Borowski
109: “Happy Endings” by Margaret Atwood
108: “The Cask of Amontillado” by Edgar Allan Poe
107: “How to Eat Chicken Wings” by Kristen Arnett
106: “The Frog Prince” by Robert Coover
105: “Milkwishes” by Kristen Roupenian
104: “Redemption” by John Gardner
103: “A Temporary Matter” by Jhumpa Lahiri
102: “The Worshipful Society of Glovers” by Mary Robinette Kowal
101: “To Build a Fire” by Jack London
100: “The Lady with the Pet Dog” by Joyce Carol Oates
099: “Lamb to the Slaughter” by Roald Dahl
098: “The Father” by Raymond Carver
097: “Flowers for Algernon” by Daniel Keyes
096: “Incarnations of Burned Children” by David Foster Wallace
095: “On Seeing the 100% Perfect Girl One Beautiful April Morning” by Haruki Murakami
094: “The Snows of Kilimanjaro” by Ernest Hemingway
093: “Dinosaur” by Bruce Holland Rogers
092: “The Venus Effect” by Violet Allen
091: “The Curious Case of Benjamin Button” by F. Scott Fitzgerald
090: “Good Country People” by Flannery O’Connor
089: “Escape from Spiderhead” by George Saunders
088: “Welcome to the Medical Clinic at the Interplanetary Relay Station” by Caroline M. Yoachim
087: “The Swimmer” by John Cheever
086: “Wikihistory” by Desmond Warzel
085: “The Black Phone” by Joe Hill
084: “Referential” by Lorrie Moore
083: “Brokeback Mountain” by Annie Proulx
082: “The Future is Blue” by Catherynne M. Valente
081: “The Secret Life of Walter Mitty” by James Thurber
080: “Girl” by Jamaica Kincaid
079: “Town of Birds” by Heather Monley
078: “The Things They Carried” by Tim O’Brien
077: “The Hunter’s Wife” by Anthony Doerr
076: “A Perfect Day for Bananafish” by J. D. Salinger
075: “Sweethearts” by Richard Ford
074: “This Is Pleasure” by Mary Gaitskill
073: “Snow” by Dale Bailey
072: “Leaf by Niggle” by J. R. R. Tolkien
071: “This is How You Fail to Ghost Him” by Victoria McCurdy
070: “Cathedral” by Raymond Carver
069: “Ghosts and Empties” by Lauren Groff
068: “The Country of the Blind” by H. G. Wells
067: “Sea Oak” by George Saunders
066: “An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge” by Ambrose Bierce
065: “All Summer in a Day” by Ray Bradbury
064: “The Lottery” by Shirley Jackson
063: “A White Heron” by Sarah Orne Jewett
062: “Story of Your Life” by Ted Chiang
061: “The Girls in Their Summer Dresses” by Irwin Shaw
First Person: Interview with Richard Bausch
060: “Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?” by Joyce Carol Oates
059: “Herman Wouk is Still Alive” by Stephen King
First Person: Interview with Benjamin Percy
058: “The Yellow Wall-Paper” by Charlotte Perkins Gilman
057: “With the Beatles” by Haruki Murakami
056: “The Prairie Wife” by Curtis Sittenfeld
055: “Wake for Susan” by Cormac McCarthy
054: “Items Awaiting Protective Enclosure” by Téa Obreht
053: “The Comet” by W. E. B. Du Bois
052: “The Art of Losing” by Yoon Choi
051: “The Saddest Case of True Love” by Simon Van Booy
050: “I Stand Here Ironing” by Tillie Olsen
049: “Gryphon” by Charles Baxter
048: “Symbols and Signs” by Vladimir Nabokov
047: “Trilobites” by B. D’J. Pancake
046: “Cougar” by Maria Anderson
045: “White Noise” by Emma Cline
044: “A Rose for Emily” by William Faulkner
043: “The Feminist” by Tony Tulathimutte
042: “God’s Work” by Kevin Canty
041: “The Fifth Story” by Clarice Lispector
040: “A Good Man is Hard to Find” by Flannery O’Connor
039: “River of Names” by Dorothy Allison
038: “Drinking Coffee Elsewhere” by ZZ Packer
037: “A&P” by John Updike
036: “The Pugilist at Rest” by Thom Jones
035: “Girl Alone” by Sallie Bingham
034: “The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas” by Ursula K. Le Guin
033: “The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County” by Mark Twain
032: The Lost World by Michael Crichton
031: “Gator Butchering for Beginners” by Kristen Arnett
030: “Woodland” by Lydia Millet
029: “The School” by Donald Barthelme
028: “Cat Person” by Kristen Roupenian
027: “Baader-Meinhof” by Don DeLillo
026: “Sweet on the Tongue” by Roxane Gay
025: “I Have No Mouth, and I Must Scream” by Harlan Ellison
024: “To the Measures Fall” by Richard Powers
023: “There Will Come Soft Rains” by Ray Bradbury
022: “Black-Eyed Women” by Viet Thanh Nguyen
021: “Goodbye and Good Luck” by Grace Paley
020: “Gender Studies” by Curtis Sittenfeld
019: “Lady Tigers” by Nick White
018: “The Babysitter” by Robert Coover
017: “Closer” by Greg Egan
016: “Girls, At Play” by Celeste Ng
015: “Only Tourists Remember the Alamo” by Alicia D. Ortega
014: “Victory Lap” by George Saunders
013: “How to Become a Writer” by Lorrie Moore
012: “When They Came to Us” by Debbie Urbanski
011: “Voices” by Alice Munro
010: “Now We Are Five” by David Sedaris
009: “What We Talk About When We Talk About Love” by Raymond Carver
008: “The Boy from Lam Kien” by Miranda July
007: “The Flood” by Megan Baxter
006: “Now I Make My Own Bread” by Elle Wignall
005: “The Tell-Tale Heart” by Edgar Allan Poe
004: “Bullet in the Brain” by Tobias Wolff
003: “The Lie” by T. Coraghessan Boyle
002: “The Balloon” by Donald Barthelme
001: “The Midnight Zone” by Lauren Groff