Esmé Weijun Wang, a 2018 Whiting Award winner, reads from her essay “On the Ward” from The Collected Schizophrenias (Graywolf Press, 2019). Wang is featured in “Portraits of Inspiration” in the January/February issue of Poets & Writers Magazine.

Where’d You Go, Bernadette (Little, Brown, 2012), Maria Semple’s comedic novel narrated by a teenage girl searching for her agoraphobic architect mother who has gone missing, has been adapted into a feature film. Directed by Richard Linklater, the movie stars Cate Blanchett, Billy Crudup, Laurence Fishburne, Judy Greer, and Kristen Wiig.

“Carson McCullers is probably the author I feel the strongest connection to, in the way of empathy and seeing the world.” Benedict Wells, whose fourth novel, The End of Loneliness (Penguin Books, 2019), translated from the German by Charlotte Collins, is featured in Page One in the January/February issue of Poets & Writers Magazine, talks about his writing process, how he began as a writer, and some of the authors who have inspired him.

“It was easy to worship obedient things.” Mario Chard reads a selection of poems from his debut poetry collection, Land of Fire (Tupelo Press, 2018) at Litquake in 2012. Karp is featured in “Wilder Forms: Our Fourteenth Annual Look at Debut Poets” in the January/February issue of Poets & Writers Magazine.

Dorianne Laux reads her poems “If It Weren’t for Bad Ideas, I’d Have No Ideas at All,” “Evening,” “This Close,” and “Savages” at a 2017 reading in Washington, D.C. for the Field Office. Laux’s new collection, Only as the Day Is Long: New and Selected Poems (Norton, 2019), is featured in Page One in the January/February issue of Poets & Writers Magazine.

“We slid pride first into his car opening the new year / the way ungraceful fingers open a gift not meant for them.” William Evans reads “New Year’s Eve Party at Eric’s House and the Black Boys Have Had Enough” from his poetry collection Still Can’t Do My Daughter’s Hair (Button Poetry, 2017) at Camp Bar in Saint Paul, Minnesota.

The Kindergarten Teacher stars Maggie Gyllenhaal as an aspiring poet and elementary school teacher who discovers the talents of a five-year-old boy in her class and becomes obsessed with protecting and encouraging his writing. Gyllenhaal and director Sara Colangelo commissioned poetry from Kaveh Akbar, Dominique Townsend, and Ocean Vuong to include as verses written by the two characters.

“We live on the unanswerable, assert / that acknowledgment is inartistic, / history is regressive, and aggression / looks like no one we know…” Justin Phillip Reed reads from his debut poetry collection, Indecency (Coffee House Press, 2018), for which he won the 2018 National Book Award in poetry. Reed is featured in “Wilder Forms: Our Fourteenth Annual Look at Debut Poets” in the January/February issue of Poets & Writers Magazine.