"I read everything aloud as I'm writing, because the ear is a great editor. I think listening is the most important thing in the creative arts, but also in life." Yusef Komunyakaa, whose new poetry collection, The Emperor of Water Clocks (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2015), is featured in Page One in the November/December issue of Poets & Writers Magazine, talks about the importance of poetry as a celebration of language and as a way to give voice to the psyche.

"A written story can inhabit an individual vision far more intensely and deeply than film is able to do." Mary Gaitskill, whose new novel, The Mare (Pantheon Books, 2015), is featured in Page One in the November/December issue of Poets & Writers Magazine, talks about the powerful worlds that can be built by great literature.

"Nevermind what lies beyond the canopy." Camille Rankine, whose debut poetry collection, Incorrect Merciful Impulses (Copper Canyon Press, 2015), is featured in Page One in the November/December issue of Poets & Writers Magazine, reads her poem "Instructions on the Forest."

The author of eighteen collections of poetry, fiction, and nonfiction is introduced by poet Carolyn Forché at the Lannan Center for Poetics and Social Practice at Georgetown University on October 28. Her new and selected poems, I Must Be Living Twice, will be published by Ecco/Harper Collins in 2015.

"I like the fact that in Rachel's case, she's not just unreliable to the reader and to other characters, but even to herself. She can't trust herself." Author Paula Hawkins speaks about the main character of her debut novel, The Girl on the Train (Riverhead Books, 2015), with Becky Anderson, owner of Anderson's Bookshop in Naperville, Illinois.

"I would say Good Girl is my life's work because my relationship with my dad is my life's work." Sarah Tomlinson speaks about her debut memoir, Good Girl (Gallery Books, 2015), and her unconventional childhood and relationship with her father.

"I don't think I could've happily stayed here in the world if I did not have a way of thinking about it, which is what writing is for me." Toni Morrison speaks about what motivates her to keep writing. Morrison's new novel, God Help the Child (Knopf, 2015), is featured in Page One in the May/June issue of Poets & Writers Magazine.

Clive James speaks with BBC News about living with a terminal illness and reads from his new poetry collection, Sentenced to Life (Picador, 2015). An essay collection by James, Latest Readings, will be published by Yale University Press in June.

Iowa City's Prairie Lights bookstore hosts a reading with poets Jessica Jacobs, author of Pelvis With Distance (White Pine Press, 2015), and Nickole Brown, author of Fanny Says (BOA Editions, 2015). Brown's poetry collection is featured in Page One in the May/June issue of Poets & Writers Magazine.

"I always, always wanted to write a book and I had been carrying around little slivers, and this emotional moment allowed me to access everything." George Hodgman speaks with PBS NewsHour's Judy Woodruff about his memoir, Bettyville (Viking, 2015), which explores his experiences caring for his aging mother.