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In this 92NY virtual reading, Lynn Melnick speaks about how Dolly Parton’s songs helped shape the structure of her memoir, I’ve Had to Think Up a Way to Survive: On Trauma, Persistence, and Dolly Parton (University of Texas Press, 2022), in a conversation with poet Deborah Paredez.
“Speak to me; speak into me, / the wind said, when I woke this morning, Let’s see what happens.” In this PBS NewsHour video, Carl Phillips reads a selection of poems from his Pulitzer Prize–winning collection, Then the War: And Selected Poems, 2007-2020 (Farrar, Straus, and Giroux, 2022), and speaks to Jeffrey Brown about the intimacy and power of poetry. Phillips is the recipient of the 2021 Jackson Poetry Prize.
“My whole task in writing a book is to get closer; to hear what I’m hearing more clearly and to see what I’m seeing more clearly.” In this conversation for the Reading the Room podcast, Amina Cain speaks about her book A Horse at Night: On Writing (Dorothy, a Publishing Project, 2022) and her creative process with host Jaylen Lopez.
National Book Award nominees Kali Fajardo-Anstine, author of Sabrina & Corina (One World, 2019), and Clint Smith, author of How the Word Is Passed: A Reckoning With the History of Slavery Across America (Little, Brown, 2021), discuss the convergences and divergences of rewriting shared memory across genres in this 2022 National Book Foundation event moderated by Dolen Perkins-Valdez.
“Tell the law nothin of substance / tell the people everything you can.” In this Button Poetry video, Darius Simpson reads his poem “The Role of the Artist,” which appears in his collection Never Catch Me (Button Poetry, 2022).
“All the books I’ve written in the past were books that I decided to write suddenly while I was writing something else.” In this London Review Bookshop conversation, French writer Édouard Louis speaks about his writing process and discovering the parts of his mother’s life he did not know for his new memoir, A Woman’s Battles and Transformations (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2022), with translator and novelist Tash Aw.
In this New York Public Library event, Cullman Center fellow Hua Hsu reads from his debut memoir, Stay True (Doubleday, 2022), and speaks about writing through grief with Ken Chen. Hsu is the winner of the 2023 Pulitzer Prize in memoir or autobiography.
Watch this virtual multilingual reading of poetry in translation presented by Words Without Borders in partnership with the Academy of American Poets. Enjoy poetry in Arabic, French, Malay, Spanish, and English, with readings by poet Jeannette Clariond and translator Samantha Schnee, poet Zahid M. Naser and translator Pauline Fan, poet Samira Negrouche, and translator Kareem James Abu-Zeid.
In this London Review Bookshop event, Fernanda Melchor reads from her novel Paradais (New Directions, 2022), translated from the Spanish by Sophie Hughes, and discusses her work and signature writing style with author Nicole Flattery.
“I think a theme in both The Idiot and Either/Or is sort of a disappointment with philosophy.” Elif Batuman speaks about the themes in both her novels and the real-life inspiration behind her second novel, Either/Or (Penguin Press, 2022), in this conversation with author Joshua Jelly-Schapiro filmed at Pioneer Works in New York City.
