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In this event hosted by the Free Library of Philadelphia, Sigrid Nunez, author of The Vulnerables (Riverhead Books, 2023), and Henry Hoke, author of Open Throat (MCD, 2023), read from their novels and discuss the writing of nontraditional lines, the appeal of literary absurdity, and current trends in literature.
Lauren Groff discusses how she unpacks the history of British colonialism in America and reckons with the frontier narrative in her new novel, The Vaster Wilds (Riverhead Books, 2023), in this conversation with Atlantic managing editor Andrea Valdez held at the 2023 Atlantic Festival.
“Don’t worry about whether you’re writing anything, worry about if you’re sitting there attempting to write something or not.” In this video, Mohsin Hamid speaks to Granta about his award-winning fourth novel, Exit West (Riverhead Books, 2017), the job of being a writer, and what he has learned from Douglas Adams.
“I don’t mind failing. Writers, most of what we do fails. And that’s the lesson that writing teaches you.” In this PBS NewsHour interview, author and musician James McBride discusses his musical, various projects, and his new novel, The Heaven & Earth Grocery Store (Riverhead Books, 2023), an imagined story of his grandmother set in the 1930s.
“When you’re sick, the act of living is more act than living.” Meghan O’Rourke reads from her book The Invisible Kingdom: Reimagining Chronic Illness (Riverhead Books, 2022) and discusses how the book changed as her illness changed in this virtual event with Jonathan M. Adler for the Harvard Radcliffe Institute’s Book Talks series.
“Literature is there to show us how there can be beauty in meaning, and this is what makes the literary experience so unique...and I’m hunting for this feeling all the time.” Hernan Diaz, author most recently of Trust (Riverhead Books, 2022), speaks about his relationship with reading, writing, and language in this Louisiana Channel interview with Marc-Christoph Wagner at the New York Public Library.
Akwaeke Emezi talks about their love of romance novels, exploring stories of grief, and writing seven books in four years, including Dear Senthuran: A Black Spirit Memoir (Riverhead Books, 2021) and You Made a Fool of Death With Your Beauty (Atria Books, 2022), in this interview for The Daily Show With Trevor Noah. For more from Emezi, read their installment of our Ten Questions series.
“When I fell for the video girl in Omarion’s ‘Touch,’ I never thought I would come to know her name,” reads Carina del Valle Schorske from the first chapter of her debut essay collection, The Other Island, forthcoming from Riverhead Books, in this Poetry Project reading with poet Sheila Maldonado, author of that’s what you get (Brooklyn Arts Press, 2021).
“Bread pudding was the first thing that I baked after I came out to my parents,” says Bryan Washington in this New Yorker video about his personal connection to the dish. For more on Washington, read his installment of Ten Questions, in which he speaks about his debut story collection, Lot (Riverhead Books, 2019).
“I am a product of this country that I interrogate in this book,” says Albert Samaha, author of Concepcion: An Immigrant Family’s Fortunes (Riverhead Books, 2021), in this episode of Coffee & Conversations with Enrique Rosell, program manager at Florida International University’s Wolfsonian Public Humanities Lab. Samaha’s debut memoir is featured in Page One in the November/December issue of Poets & Writers Magazine.
