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“I ask them to take a poem / and hold it up to the light...” This animated video by Milos features Billy Collins narrating his poem “Introduction to Poetry” fromThe Apple That Astonished Paris (University of Arkansas Press, 1996). Collins’s new poetry collection, The Rain in Portugal (Random House, 2016), is featured in Page One in the November/December issue of Poets & Writers Magazine.
Teju Cole reads from his novel Open City (Random House, 2012) while accepting the 2015 Windham Campbell Prize for Fiction. Cole speaks about his collection of essays, Known and Strange Things (Random House, 2016), in the September/October issue of Poets & Writers Magazine.
“To be a stranger is to be looked at, but to be black is to be looked at especially.” Listen to writer, photographer, and art historian Teju Cole read “Black Body” from his new essay collection, Known and Strange Things (Random House, 2016). Cole is featured in the September/October issue of Poets & Writers Magazine in “Love and Witness” by Kevin Nance.
"I wanted to write about that moment where everything is at such a high pitch...that you could make one bad decision that could change your life forever." Emma Cline speaks about her debut novel, The Girls (Random House, 2016), which is longlisted for the Center for Fiction's First Novel Prize.
"It's from 'A Prayer for My Daughter' and the lines are 'It's certain that fine women eat / A crazy salad with their meat,' and I thought it was a nice title for a book about women." In this 1975 interview with Studs Terkel, the late Nora Ephron recounts lines by Yeats, the poetic inspiration for the title of her book of essays Crazy Salad: Some Things About Women (Random House, 1975), and talks about her experiences as a journalist and feminist. Animated by Pat Smith, this video is part of PBS Digital Studio's Blank on Blank series.
“Bringing the gifts that my ancestors gave, / I am the dream and the hope of the slave. / I rise / I rise / I rise.” In a BBC video montage, Wimbledon champion Serena Williams reads empowering lines from Maya Angelou’s poem “Still I Rise” from her collection And Still I Rise (Random House, 1978).
"In a public library, surrounded by all these books, I felt very much at home." Imbolo Mbue talks about her love of public libraries, reading Toni Morrison's 1977 novel, Song of Solomon, for the first time, and her experience writing her debut novel, Behold the Dreamers (Random House, 2016). Read more about Mbue in "First Fiction 2016" in the July/August issue of Poets & Writers Magazine and listen to her read from her debut novel on Ampersand: The Poets & Writers Podcast.
Curtis Sittenfeld speaks with PBS NewHour's Jeffrey Brown about her latest novel, Eligible (Random House, 2016), a retelling of Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice set in twenty-first-century Cincinnati. Sittenfeld is a participant of the Austen Project, in which six contemporary authors have been asked to reimagine Austen's six complete works.
"The days started getting dark earlier...the air had cooled noticeably, with the first carved pumpkins appearing in windows." Listen to novelist Charles Bock speak about and read from his first novel, Beautiful Children (Random House, 2008), for the Authors@Google series. Bock's latest novel, Alice & Oliver (Random House, 2016), is featured in Page One in the May/June issue of Poets & Writers Magazine.
Lauren Redniss gives a TEDx Talk about the process of trial, error, and transforming mistakes that went into the creation of her second book, Radioactive: Marie & Pierre Curie: A Tale of Love and Fallout (It Books, 2010). Redniss was awarded the 2016 PEN/E. O. Wilson Literary Science Writing Award for her latest book, Thunder & Lightning: Weather Past, Present, Future (Random House, 2015).
