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“Everybody feels ashamed when they write. It’s a shameful practice.” In this 2018 interview with Louisiana Channel, Zadie Smith, author most recently of Swing Time (Penguin Press, 2016), discusses the positive aspects of shame and how it can be productive for the writing process.
“What isn’t twisted and dark? Look around! Twisted and dark means new and interesting.” Ottessa Moshfegh speaks with Vintage Books about dark comedy in writing, the difference between art and entertainment, and why she writes about the female body. Moshfegh is the author of My Year of Rest and Relaxation (Penguin Press, 2018), which is featured in Page One in the July/August issue of Poets & Writers Magazine.
“The main advice I would have is to be really easy on yourself, to shut off as much as you can the voice that’s saying maybe you’re wasting your time, and maybe everything that you do is stupid.” Elif Batuman, a finalist for the 2018 Pulitzer Prize for her debut novel, The Idiot (Penguin Press, 2017), talks to Granta about the literary model of Charles M. Schulz’s Snoopy and the blurred boundary between fiction and nonfiction.
“It was like the story of your relations with others...was constantly being recorded and updated, and you could check it at any time.” Elif Batuman reads from her debut novel, The Idiot (Penguin Press, 2017), a semifinalist for the 2018 Women’s Prize for Fiction, at Politics and Prose Bookstore in Washington, D.C.
“I don’t have any heroes in fiction but I have been influenced by fictional heroes many, many times.” In this video, Karl Ove Knausgaard responds to the Proust Questionnaire for the Centre de Cultura Contemporània de Barcelona’s Kosmopolis Continuous Programme series. His most recent novel, Winter (Penguin Press, 2018), translated from the Norwegian by Ingvild Burkey, is featured in Page One in the January/February 2018 issue of Poets & Writers Magazine.
“Whoever you are, no matter how lonely, / the world offers itself to your imagination.” In this video poem, produced by We Are Wildness and Live Learn Evolve, Mary Oliver reads her classic poem “Wild Geese.” Devotions: The Selected Poems of Mary Oliver (Penguin Press, 2017) is featured in Page One in the November/December 2017 issue of Poets & Writers Magazine.
“Six months remain until you will be born and anything at all could happen to you in that time...” Karl Ove Knausgaard reads from his book Autumn (Penguin Press, 2017), which is featured in Page One in the September/October 2017 issue of Poets & Writers Magazine.
“The serious part of it is having a great capacity to be alone—that really is the key...” Zadie Smith talks about the writing life and inspiration, her identity as a writer, and how her routines have changed in a video for Denver Post's Pen & Podium series. Smith's new novel, Swing Time (Penguin Press, 2016), is featured in Page One in the November/December issue of Poets & Writers Magazine.
“Often my subjects are the simplest things in the world: joy, family, the weather, houses, streets—nothing fancy. And when I sit down with these subjects, my aim is clarity...” In her acceptance speech for the 2014 Moth Award, Zadie Smith shares her perspective on storytelling and how it has changed over the years. Smith’s fifth novel, Swing Time (Penguin Press, 2016), is featured in Page One in the November/December issue of Poets & Writers Magazine.
Raphael Montes is featured in this book trailer for his English-language debut, Perfect Days (Penguin Press, 2016), a crime novel translated from the Portuguese by Alison Entrekin. Montes was a finalist for both the Benvirá Literature Prize and the Machado de Assis Prize from the Brazilian Academy of Letters for his first novel, Suicidas (Saraiva/Benvirá, 2012).
