My name is Sarah Varene and I'm a professor of creative nonfiction and also a journalist.

Most of my professional life I've been kind of obsessed with a central question in my

field which is how do we tell true stories and what's the relationship between truth

telling and storytelling.

And for most of the time that I've been through grappling with that question and writing

about it and thinking about it, it's been very theoretical.

But then last year in March my wife and I suddenly discovered that she was at the center

of a series of pretty horrifying accusations and that experience and everything that followed

afterwards changed my understanding not only of storytelling and of truth but also of lies.

And I wrote about all this for a piece The New York Times magazine called The Acquisition.

Read for you today by Gabra Zachman.

We were at a friend's doctoral graduation party on a Friday night at the end of March.

I had a glass of wine in one hand and our toddler on my hip when Marta found me.

I got a really weird email, she said.

The moon hung full over our heads and all of us were in short sleeves holding beers or

wine and looking barbecues off our fingers while our kids played hide and seek in the dark.

What? I said. Something about me sexually harassing students.

Marta said, taking F from my arms.

What? I said louder this time.

It's probably spam, she said.

And then she disappeared.

That night we toasted our friend and her newly minted PhD.

...