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“It’s a story of a young girl who comes to America in the early 1980s and, among many other things, discovers something called race,” says Sharmila Sen about her debut memoir, Not Quite Not White: Losing and Finding Race in America (Penguin Books, 2018), which won the 2019 Asian/Pacific American Award for Literature in nonfiction.
“I sincerely believe this is a life-affirming book and it is a novel that celebrates diversity, inclusion…and friendships.” Elif Shafak speaks about her writing process and the inspiration behind her latest novel, 10 Minutes 38 Seconds in This Strange World (Viking, 2019), which is shortlisted for the 2019 Booker Prize.
“Letter writing is a pure act of devotion, a place where, if not storytellers, we all become human again.” In this PBS NewsHour video, Willie Perdomo, the author most recently of The Crazy Bunch (Penguin Books, 2019), talks about the value of writing letters and how they are “where we attempt to tell the truth and wait.”
“Carson McCullers is probably the author I feel the strongest connection to, in the way of empathy and seeing the world.” Benedict Wells, whose fourth novel, The End of Loneliness (Penguin Books, 2019), translated from the German by Charlotte Collins, is featured in Page One in the January/February issue of Poets & Writers Magazine, talks about his writing process, how he began as a writer, and some of the authors who have inspired him.
“I am begging: Let me be lonely but not invisible.” This Motionpoems film directed by Mohammed Hammad features Natalie Diaz’s poem “American Arithmetic,” which appeared in the anthology Tales of Two Americas: Stories of Inequality in a Divided Nation (Penguin Books, 2017) edited by John Freeman.
In this behind-the-scenes video from Penguin Random House, the multistep process of publishing a book is presented as it moves from author to reader, from manuscript editing and book design to distribution and bookstore sale. The book shown in the journey is the debut short story collection, Back Talk (Penguin Books, 2018), by Danielle Lazarin, who is featured in Literary MagNet in the January/February 2018 issue of Poets & Writers Magazine.
“Even if what you’re writing seems boring to you...you’re preparing yourself for the moment when life or something else broadsides you and you need to write.” John Freeman, editor of the essay anthology Tales of Two Americas: Stories of Inequality in a Divided Nation (Penguin Books, 2017), shares writing advice and what his favorite authors have in common.
“I lock you in an American sonnet that is part prison, / Part panic closet...” Terrance Hayes reads poems from his new collection, American Sonnets for My Past and Future Assassin (Penguin Books, 2018), and discusses the origin and inspiration for the book at the 2017 Palm Beach Poetry Festival. Hayes reads more poems from the collection in the twentieth episode of Ampersand: The Poets & Writers Podcast, and is interviewed by Hanif Abdurraqib for the cover profile in the July/August issue of Poets & Writers Magazine.
Adrian Matejka reads “Battle Royale,” “Prize Fighter,” and other poems from his third collection, The Big Smoke (Penguin Books, 2013), which focus on the life of Jack Johnson, the first African American world heavyweight boxing champion. Matejka is the new poet laureate of Indiana, succeeding Shari Wagner.
“‘In a dark cave, I saw’ ‘an apparition:’ ‘almost real, almost there—’...” In this video, Alice Notley reads from her feminist epic The Descent of Alette (Penguin Books, 1996) at the Lab in San Francisco. The two-night program included a reading of the entire book-length poem and was cosponsored by the Poetry Center at San Francisco State University.
