Selected Shorts: Zadie Smith and Colm Tóibín

Best known for her novels about culture clash and familial reconciliation, Zadie Smith published a nonfiction essay collection, Changing My Mind, and for a time presided as the "New Books" columnist for Harper's. Irishman Colm Tóibín is a jack-of-all-trades, having produced several novels, collections of short stories, poems, a play, criticism and essays of every stripe. It should be a treat to hear this cultivated and opinionated duo—who are also friends—curate an evening of stories.