Theater video tags: speech

“I became a writer not because I was seeking community but rather because I thought it would be something I could do alone and hidden in the privacy of my own room,” says Sigrid Nunez in her acceptance speech for the 2018 National Book Award in fiction, which she won for her seventh novel, The Friend (Riverhead Books, 2018). “How lucky to have discovered that writing books made the miraculous possible: to be removed from the world and to be a part of the world at the same time.”

“We will need writers who can remember freedom.” In this video, Ursula K. Le Guin accepts the National Book Foundation’s 2014 Medal for Distinguished Contribution to American Letters. Le Guin’s essay collection, No Time to Spare: Thinking About What Matters (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2017), is featured in Page One in the January/February issue of Poets & Writers Magazine.

“We keep on trying because there’s nothing else to do.” With a timely speech, Annie Proulx accepts the National Book Foundation’s 2017 Medal for Distinguished Contribution to American Letters, which recognizes individuals who have made an exceptional impact on the country’s literary heritage.

“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.