“What I’m often writing about is the sense of disappointment between how one wishes one would be and how one really is.” A. M. Homes speaks about her new story collection, Days of Awe (Viking, 2018), for Waterstones in London. Homes reads an excerpt from the book in the twentieth episode of Ampersand: The Poets & Writers Podcast.

In a craft talk at the Center for Fiction in New York City, A. M. Homes discusses the value of having a writing routine, how she approaches novels and short stories differently, and her fascination with Barbie. Homes is the author of Days of Awe (Viking, 2018), which is featured in Page One in the July/August issue of Poets & Writers Magazine.

“Reading is an opportunity to see little aspects of the world and different periods that you can never access yourself...” Tom Rachman talks about how his literary inspirations, such as Dickens, Tolstoy, Virginia Woolf, and George Orwell, have evolved over the years. Rachman’s third novel, The Italian Teacher (Viking, 2018), is featured in Page One in the March/April issue of Poets & Writers Magazine.

“That was really one of my goals when I wrote the book, to create a human experience rather than the so-called North Korean experience for readers.” Author and translator Krys Lee speaks about her debut novel, How I Became a North Korean (Viking, 2016), and what she hopes to accomplish through her writing.

“I see the world as a magical place.” Nnedi Okorafor talks about magical realism, fantasy, and her writing process at the 2015 Aké Arts and Book Festival in Abeokuta, Nigeria. Okorafor is the author most recently of Akata Warrior (Viking, 2017), the second novel in the Akata young adult fantasy series centered around Sunny Nwazue, a Nigerian American girl.

“There are big questions about where I take my career, how one makes that decision; to be able to talk about that with somebody who really understands those business questions, as well as the creative questions, is wonderful.” Naomi Alderman, who received the 2017 Baileys Women’s Prize for Fiction for The Power (Viking, 2017), and Margaret Atwood talk about their experiences being paired together as mentee and mentor, respectively, under the Rolex Mentor and Protégé Arts Initiative program.

The Danish Girl, a film adaptation of David Ebershoff's first novel, follows the story of married painters Lili Elbe and Gerda Wegener, and Lili's journey as a transgender pioneer. The film is directed by Tom Hooper and stars Eddie Redmayne and Alicia Vikander.