Jump to navigation Skip to content
“I don’t want to get all dramatic—‘writing saved my life’ or anything like that—but writing’s given me a life.” In this video, Paul Beatty talks about freedom and censorship within writing in his acceptance speech for the 2016 Man Booker Prize for Fiction. Beatty, who was honored for his novel The Sellout (Oneworld, 2016), is the first American author to win the award.
“Upon moments like these, time never stops gnawing its little beaver teeth and the dialogue never stops even after we stop listening.” In this 2012 video, Peter Orner reads from his novel Love and Shame and Love (Little, Brown, 2011). His first essay collection, Am I Alone Here? Notes on Living to Read and Reading to Live (Catapult, 2016), is featured in Page One in the November/December issue of Poets & Writers Magazine.
“Never in my mind did I think I was writing about love. Now I look at it and there’s no question, it’s all about the intimacies of love...” Chloe Caldwell reads from and talks about her first collection of essays, Legs Get Led Astray (Future Tense Books, 2012). Caldwell’s second essay collection, I’ll Tell You in Person (Emily Books, 2016), is featured in Page One in the November/December issue of Poets & Writers Magazine.
“‘Sometimes on American Idol, Nicki Minaj says I’m obsessed with you,’ she says. ‘I’m obsessed with you right now,’ I say.” Chloe Caldwell, whose second essay collection, I’ll Tell You in Person (Emily Books, 2016), is featured in Page One in the November/December issue of Poets & Writers Magazine, reads from her novella, Women (Short Flight/Long Drive Books, 2014).
In this book trailer for his debut memoir, All Tomorrow’s Parties (Grove Press, 2016), Rob Spillman recounts defining experiences from time spent as a child in Berlin, Aspen, and Baltimore. Spillman, who serves as the editor of Tin House and the executive editor of Tin House Books, is featured in Agents & Editors in the November/December issue of Poets & Writers Magazine.
The Handmaiden, directed by Park Chan-wook, is a South Korean film adaptation of Sarah Waters’s crime novel Fingersmith (Riverhead Books, 2002). The film, which premiered at the 2016 Cannes Film Festival, transfers the setting of the Victorian era story—about an orphaned pickpocket hired to pose as a maid for a wealthy heiress—to Korea under Japanese colonial rule in the 1930s.
“You do not believe you are sexy. You do not believe you are beautiful. You believe you are intelligent, but sometimes the effort to convince others isn’t worth it.” Jennifer Bartlett, whose essay "A Call to Action: Working Toward Inclusiveness for Poets With Disabilities" is in the November/December issue of Poets & Writers Magazine, reads from “The Hindrances of a Householder” at the 2016 Split This Rock Poetry Festival in Washington, D.C.
“Even when I’m writing for young people, I really try to get into the emotional side of who they are...” At the 2016 National Book Festival, Jacqueline Woodson discusses her novel Another Brooklyn (HarperCollins, 2016), which is shortlisted for the 2016 National Book Award in fiction. Woodson is featured in “A Great Good” by Rigoberto González in the September/October issue of Poets & Writers Magazine.
“I ask them to take a poem / and hold it up to the light...” This animated video by Milos features Billy Collins narrating his poem “Introduction to Poetry” fromThe Apple That Astonished Paris (University of Arkansas Press, 1996). Collins’s new poetry collection, The Rain in Portugal (Random House, 2016), is featured in Page One in the November/December issue of Poets & Writers Magazine.
“Forgive me. My heart is an endless elegy. My heart is the ash every house of God leaves behind.” Joshua Bennett, author of the poetry collection, The Sobbing School (Penguin Books, 2016), reads a poem for “Black Joy,” an event presented by AfroPunk and the Strivers Row in New York.
