# Modest Expectations

Page: https://stenobird.com/podcast/selected-shorts-2124093/modest-expectations
Text version: https://stenobird.com/podcast/selected-shorts-2124093/modest-expectations.md
Podcast: [Selected Shorts](https://stenobird.com/podcast/selected-shorts-2124093)
Published: 2026-05-21T17:00:11+00:00
Episode link: https://soundcloud.com/selectedshorts/modest-expectations-1
Audio file: http://www.podtrac.com/pts/redirect.mp3/feeds.soundcloud.com/stream/2324356610-selectedshorts-modest-expectations-1.mp3
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JSON: https://stenobird.com/v1/public/podcasts/selected-shorts-2124093/episodes/modest-expectations
Duration seconds: 3576

## Resource

Host Meg Wolitzer presents four stories, recorded at the Getty Center in Los Angeles, in which characters shape their expectations and dreams to a manageable size. So if you’re “Medusa,” as in our first story, by Tania James, you try to figure out how to live in the world instead of turning it to stone. The reader is Constance Zimmer. Parents in our second story, “We Only Wanted Their Happiness,” by Alexander Weinstein, make a tactical choice about technology. It’s performed by Randall Park. The narrator of Honor Levy’s “Good Boys,” read by Annie Hamilton, understands that infatuation is a phase. And a man and a woman sidestep romance in “Arrangements” by Charlie Watts, performed by Laura Harrier and Will Harrison. The program was created in cooperation with Belletrist, an online book club created by Emma Roberts and Karah Preiss.

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## Transcript

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