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In this PBS Books virtual event celebrating the release of the fortieth anniversary edition of The House on Mango Street, published by Everyman’s Library, author Sandra Cisneros discusses the novel and how it has touched many lives and affected the literary landscape in a conversation with Heather-Marie Montilla.
In this 2023 National Book Festival event, Joy Harjo, author of Weaving Sundown in a Scarlet Light: Fifty Poems for Fifty Years (Norton, 2022), and Camille T. Dungy, author of Soil: The Story of a Black Mother’s Garden (Simon & Schuster, 2023), read from their work and discuss writing about nature in a conversation moderated by NPR’s Ayesha Rascoe. Dungy’s essay “Manifest Some Magic: Get Out of Your Own Way and Do the Darn Thing” is included in the January/February issue of Poets & Writers Magazine.
In this National Book Festival event, George Saunders accepts the 2023 Library of Congress Prize for American Fiction and speaks about his writing process, how problems in a work-in-progress contain opportunities, and the place of empathy in storytelling in a conversation moderated by Library of Congress literary director Clay Smith.
“I write toward what hurts. I write toward the truth, and I tell it again. I scribe the whole.” In this National Book Festival event, Jesmyn Ward, recipient of the 2022 Library of Congress Prize for American Fiction, speaks about how her grandmother influenced her work as a writer and joins Librarian of Congress Carla Hayden in a conversation about her award-winning novels, grief writing, and cultural authenticity.
In this video, Kim Fu, author of Lesser Known Monsters of the 21st Century (Tin House, 2022), and Lidia Yuknavitch, author of Thrust (Riverhead Books, 2022), speak about writing within off-kilter realities for this 2022 National Book Festival event moderated by Poets & Writers editor-in-chief Kevin Larimer.
“I love the deep attribute of poetry to pause, to look, to listen, to respect, to pay attention to variety and learn something new.” Naomi Shihab Nye, Juan Felipe Herrera, and Jane Hirschfield discuss poetry and the poet’s role in America at the 2015 National Book Festival in this video from the Academy of American Poets.
“The greatest trailblazer for me, in some ways, was my local library,” says Lucinda Roy, author of Flying the Coop (Tor Books, 2022), in this discussion with Leslye Penelope, author of The Monsters We Defy (Orbit, 2022), and journalist Angie Miles about speculative fiction and creating strong empowered female heroines for this virtual event celebrating the 2022 Library of Congress National Book Festival.
Geraldine Brooks speaks about her “ridiculous optimism” for new writing projects, the connection she has with her characters, and her new novel, Horse (Viking, 2022), with librarian Rebekah Scarborough in this virtual event, hosted by PBS Books in collaboration with Georgia Public Broadcasting celebrating the 2022 Library of Congress National Book Festival.
In this 2021 National Book Festival virtual event, Patricia Engel, author of Infinite Country (Avid Reader Press, 2021), and Rivka Galchen, author of Everyone Knows Your Mother Is a Witch (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2021), speak about their books with Kevin Larimer, editor in chief of Poets & Writers.
At the 2018 National Book Festival, Lorrie Moore, author of See What Can Be Done: Essays, Criticism, and Commentary (Knopf, 2018), and Richard Russo, author of The Destiny Thief: Essays on Writing, Writers and Life (Knopf, 2018), speak about humor and storytelling with Kevin Larimer, editor in chief of Poets & Writers Magazine.
