“These are people who are basically pulled all over the world, and they have various antecedents that are a bit everywhere.” In an interview with Parul Sehgal at the 92nd Street Y, André Aciman, whose latest novel, Find Me (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2019), is a sequel to his 2007 novel, Call Me By Your Name, talks about how his cultural background has influenced the way his characters communicate and interact with one another.

In this Waterstones video, André Aciman introduces his latest novel, Find Me (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2019), the sequel to his 2007 novel Call Me By Your Name, and shares three books from the shelves of the bookstore that have influenced his writing.

“I got into the habit of writing very, very, very quickly,” says Rachel Cusk, author of the Outline trilogy and the essay collection, Coventry (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2019), about taking long breaks from writing to live a normal life and the experience of being a mother to young children without the time to make notes. “I had to hold things and then find an opportunity to express them.”

Geovani Martins, author of the debut short story collection, The Sun on My Head (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2019), translated from the Portuguese by Julia Sanches, talks about incorporating slang and the language used by different regions in Rio de Janeiro into his writing, and the new generation of thinkers and artists from the favelas of Brazil.

“I don’t really think you can teach people to write, you can just teach them to read. Read everything you can about your setting or your characters or whatever it is you don’t know.” In this Granta video, Sarah Moss, the author most recently of Ghost Wall (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2019), offers advice on first drafts, research, and the importance of reading to a writer.

“Every conversation between us then had a way of spiraling into the same abyss. Real men were impossible to understand. Real men suffered. Real men were broken.” Jaed Coffin reads from his second memoir, Roughhouse Friday (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2019), which is featured in Page One in the July/August issue of Poets & Writers Magazine, and talks about his experiences barroom boxing in Alaska with Kathryn Miles for Portland Public Library’s Literary Lunch series.

“Love was not a word that was ever said in our house. It suddenly felt like a great secret, rediscovered.” Chris Rush’s coming-of-age debut memoir, The Light Years (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2019), is set in the 1960s and 1970s, focusing on the author’s childhood and teen years spent exploring drugs and counterculture.

Khaled Khalifa talks with Renée Ragin at Duke University about questions of Arab and Syrian identity, the relationship between his writing and war, and themes of death and difficult journeys in his fifth novel, Death Is Hard Work (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2019). The novel, translated from the Arabic by Leri Price, is featured in Page One in the March/April issue of Poets & Writers Magazine.

“It was the first time that literature felt personal, relevant, urgent....” Laura van den Berg talks about the transformative experience of reading contemporary fiction and short stories during her first writing workshop in college. Van den Berg’s second novel, The Third Hotel (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2018), is featured in Page One in the September/October issue of Poets & Writers Magazine.

“I wanted writing to be something that involved relationships with other people.” Rachel Cusk talks about her experience teaching creative writing at Kingston University in London. Cusk’s novel Kudos (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2018), which is featured in Page One in the July/August issue of Poets & Writers Magazine, is the third volume in the trilogy that began with Outline (Picador, 2016).