This episode is presented by W. Hotels, from Shanghai to New York.

I love hotels that feel like a living, breathing part of a city and makes me feel like I'm experiencing that place in an authentic, holistic way.

In 2025, Austria celebrates the 200th birthday of Johann Strauss Jr.,

Austria's famous Waltz composer.

Born into the legendary Strauss family, he composed beautiful pieces like the Blue Danube Waltz,

which soared to fame during his 1872 American tour.

In 2025, Vienna will host a year-long extravaganza to celebrate this legacy.

So join them and discover the magic of the walls throughout the city.

Learn more at austria.info slash Strauss.

Thank you. This is The Writer's Voice, new fiction from The New Yorker.

I'm Deborah Treesman, fiction editor at The New Yorker.

On this week's episode of The Writer's Voice, we'll hear Lauren Groff read her story between The Shadow and the Soul from the December 16th, 2024 issue of the magazine.

Groff has published five novels, including Fates and Furies and the Vaster Wilds,

which came out last year. Her second story collection, Florida, won the Story Prize and was

a finalist for the National

Book Award in 2018, and she was named one of Times 100 most influential people of 2024.

Now here's Lauren Groff.

Between the Shadow and the Soul

They had lived together for 25 years in the old stone house on a bend in the river.

They were young when they first saw the place wildly in love,

and so poor they could afford only one of two dwellings in the valley. A battered trailer huddled

against the cold wind and the antique house in foreclosure, a breath from letting the weeds

...