This is the New Yorker fiction podcast from the New Yorker magazine.
I'm Deborah Treisman, fiction editor at the New Yorker.
Each month we invite a writer to choose a story from the magazine's archives to read and discuss.
This month, we're going to hear the lesson by Jessamine west.
Hey, Curly, he called softly.
How you feel this morning?
Feel like a prize baby beef.
Feel like the best steer in California.
The story was chosen by Sherman Alexei, whose stories have been appearing in the New Yorker for more than a decade.
Hes published almost 20 books of fiction and poetry.
His new story collection, Blasphemy New and selected stories, is just out this month from Grove Press.
He joins me from Kuow in Seattle.
Hi, Sherman.
Hi, Debra.
Now, Jessamine west was a Quaker who lived in Indiana and California.
She published ten stories in the New Yorker between 1948 and 1970, as well as a handful of poems.
She wrote almost 20 books and several screenplays.
But I knew very little about her before I started preparing for this podcast.
How did you first find her work?
I looked up the New Yorker.