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“My parents raised me in a white-sided saltbox house, the sort children draw in crayon. Years before we lived there, it had been cut in half and moved across town. We never learned why.” Jeannie Vanasco, who is featured in “The Unknown Yet Inevitable: Debut Literary Nonfiction of 2017” in the September/October issue of Poets & Writers Magazine, reads from her debut memoir, The Glass Eye (Tin House Books, 2017), at the University of Chicago.
“As an English language writer, I’m not often asked to stretch culturally...” Eileen Myles talks about writing and nationalism, and the importance of international events like the Festival Neue Literatur. Myles’s debut memoir, Afterglow (a dog memoir) (Grove Press, 2017), is featured in Page One in the September/October issue of Poets & Writers Magazine.
Mike Scalise reads from his debut memoir, The Brand New Catastrophe (Sarabande Books, 2017), at the Sunday Salon series in New York City. Scalise is featured in “The Unknown Yet Inevitable: Debut Literary Nonfiction of 2017” in the September/October issue of Poets & Writers Magazine.
“It’s okay to be in flux and figure it out, and take your time to figure it out.” Follow iO Tillett Wright through the streets of New York City to Joshua Tree in California leading up to the launch of his debut memoir, Darling Days (Ecco, 2016).
“Even people who don’t read poems have poetry in their heads.” Filmed as part of the Rolex Mentor and Protégé Arts Initiative, this video features poets Hans Magnus Enzensberger and Tracy K. Smith, who discuss the nature of poetry and their creative processes. Smith's memoir, Ordinary Light (Knopf, 2015), is a finalist for the 2015 National Book Award.
The Glass Castle (Scribner, 2005), the best-selling debut memoir by Jeannette Walls about her childhood in a nomadic family dealing with dysfunction and poverty, has been adapted into a feature film. Directed by Destin Daniel Cretton, the film stars Woody Harrelson, Brie Larson, and Naomi Watts.
“What is a connection made up of when two people have incredible inequality between them?” Michelle Kuo speaks about her debut memoir, Reading With Patrick: A Teacher, a Student, and a Life-Changing Friendship (Random House, 2017), which is featured in Page One in the July/August issue of Poets & Writers Magazine.
Roxane Gay reads part of “The Illusion of Safety/The Safety of Illusion” from her essay collection, Bad Feminist (Harper Perennial, 2014). Her debut memoir, Hunger: A Memoir of (My) Body (Harper, 2017), is featured in Page One in the July/August issue of Poets & Writers Magazine.
“I was not at my mother’s side when she took her last breath.” Sherman Alexie reads from his debut memoir, You Don’t Have to Say You Love Me (Little, Brown, 2017), which is featured in Page One in the July/August issue of Poets & Writers Magazine.
“I think it’s really important for writers to understand themselves as artists.” At the 92nd Street Y, longtime friends Eileen Myles and Chris Kraus read from their work and have a conversation about their life experiences and writing processes.
