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“She was a short story that kind of got too big and started rolling away from me,” says Katie Yee about her debut novel, Maggie; or a Man and a Woman Walk Into a Bar (Summit Books, 2025), in this episode of Poured Over: The Barnes & Noble Podcast hosted by Miwa Messer, in which they discuss writing outside of your own experience and usual style.
In this Creative Writing Series event at the University of Notre Dame, Kristen Arnett reads from her novel Stop Me If You’ve Heard This One (Riverhead Books, 2025) and talks about how she played with form by using different typefaces for “funny” and “not funny,” and her process to ensure that each joke lands.
The author of Restitution (Regal House Publishing, September 2025) recommends writers refine their research and examine which details actually serve their characters and plots.
In this video from the keynote of A Writing Room’s 2022 retreat, best-selling author Anne Lamott speaks about the discipline needed to write and reflects on writing as a spiritual and moral practice grounded in truth telling.
Hanya Yanagihara’s 2015 novel, A Little Life, centers on the complex relationships between four college friends: Jude, Willem, JB, and Malcolm. JB, a painter, begins a new series of portraits based on his friends, working from memory. When he paints Jude, his enigmatic friend with whom he’s grown distant, he claims it’s a tribute. However, the portrait depicts Jude mid-stumble, highlighting the distinctive walk caused by his lifelong injuries and trauma, and the image is widely seen as exploitative by their friends. This moment marks a betrayal and demonstrates how attempting to capture another person’s essence, even someone you love, can sometimes be dangerous. Write a story about a narrator trying to understand someone they were once close with, perhaps a sibling, friend, or lover. What image do they want to believe? What truths remain unseen?
In this virtual reading and conversation, Poets & Writers Magazine features editor India Lena González introduces the five debut authors featured in “First Fiction 2025”: Sarah Yahm, author of Unfinished Acts of Wild Creation (Dzanc Books, 2025); Jon Hickey, author of Big Chief (Simon & Schuster, 2025); Carrie R. Moore, author of Make Your Way Home (Tin House Books, 2025); Aaron John Curtis, author of Old School Indian (Hillman Grad Books, 2025); and Jemimah Wei, author of The Original Daughter (Doubleday, 2025).
“I just remember the miraculous appearance of story seeds, bursts of inspiration, and cloudless composition.” —Ed Park, author of An Oral History of Atlantis
In this Daily Show interview, author Rob Franklin speaks about the themes of race, class, and privilege in his debut novel, Great Black Hope (Summit Books, 2025), with host Josh Johnson.
The author of Restitution (Regal House Publishing, September 2025) recommends writers use their own memories as a testing ground for their characters.
In this PBS NewsHour video, Ann Patchett, author and owner of Parnassus Books in Nashville, and Maureen Corrigan, professor and book critic for NPR’s Fresh Air, offer recommendations for summer reading, including The Satisfaction Café (Scribner, 2025) by Kathy Wang, King of Ashes (Flatiron Books, 2025) by S. A. Cosby, and A Marriage at Sea: A True Story of Love, Obsession, and Shipwreck (Riverhead Books, 2025) by Sophie Elmhirst.
