Poets & Writers Theater

Khaled Khalifa talks with Renée Ragin at Duke University about questions of Arab and Syrian identity, the relationship between his writing and war, and themes of death and difficult journeys in his fifth novel, Death Is Hard Work (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2019). The novel, translated from the Arabic by Leri Price, is featured in Page One in the March/April issue of Poets & Writers Magazine.

“In a lot of African storytelling, unlike storytelling in the West, it’s the trickster who is telling the story, so you already know you can’t quite believe it.” On Late Night With Seth Meyers, Marlon James speaks about the influences behind his new novel, Black Leopard, Red Wolf (Riverhead Books, 2019), the first title of his Dark Star Trilogy, ranging from the television series The Affair and George R. R. Martin’s Game of Thrones. A profile of James by Kima Jones appears in the March/April issue of Poets & Writers Magazine.

“My work is a tragic form of fiction that is both European and African at the same time.” In this interview for the Louisiana Channel, Chigozie Obioma speaks about how his early influences of Shakespeare and Igbo folklore led him to write his debut novel, The Fishermen (Little, Brown, 2015). Obioma is featured in “Portraits of Inspiration” in the January/February issue of Poets & Writers Magazine.

“It’s a novel of ideas, too—it’s concerned with the consequences of our societal obsession with celebrity, status, appearance, and wealth,” says Laura Sims about her debut novel, Looker (Scribner, 2019). In this video, Sims also talks about how libraries have played an important role throughout her life, and how she drew inspiration from the work of Elena Ferrante and Jenny Offill, and numerous science fiction, murder mystery, and horror novels.

“In the days since her arrest, Mary Ripley has not slept—ironic, since sleeping is precisely what she was doing on the night her landlady was murdered.” In this short animation, Christina Dalcher narrates her seven-sentence story, “The Burden of Proof.” Dalcher is the author of the debut novel, Vox (Berkley, 2018), which takes place in a dystopian United States where women are only allowed to speak one hundred words per day.

“I like to have a story be just the essential.” Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah, author of Friday Black (Mariner Books, 2018), talks about why he enjoys the short story form, writing Black characters, and his connection with his students in this Late Night With Seth Meyers interview. 

“I kept notes about the interesting things I would find in people’s garbage. You can tell quite a bit about a person by what they throw away.” Jen Beagin, whose second novel, Vacuum in the Dark, will be published by Scribner in February, talks about how her experience cleaning homes in New Mexico inspired her to start writing fiction.

“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.”

Ophelia is a retelling of William Shakespeare’s play Hamlet from the perspective of the Prince of Denmark’s love interest. Directed by Claire McCarthy, the feature film stars Daisy Ridley in the title role, Tom Felton as Laertes, George MacKay as Hamlet, Clive Owen as Claudius, and Naomi Watts as Gertrude.

Yaa Gyasi and Zadie Smith speak with Courtney Martin about representation and risks in writing, the power of fiction to invoke curiosity and transform behavior, issues of history and identity, and their current projects at the 2018 Obama Foundation Summit.

James Baldwin’s 1974 novel If Beale Street Could Talk has been adapted into a feature film directed by Barry Jenkins. Starring Stephan James, Regina King, and KiKi Layne, the film follows a young woman in 1970s Harlem attempting to prove her fiancé’s innocence when he is arrested for a crime he didn’t commit.

Sophie Mackintosh reads from her debut novel, The Water Cure (Doubleday, 2019), at Waterstones bookstore and talks about being influenced by Jeffrey Eugenides’s novel The Virgin Suicides, Yorgos Lanthimos’s film Dogtooth, Joan Lindsay’s novel Picnic at Hanging Rock, and the recent sociopolitical climate.

“What one carries from one point to another, geographically or temporally, is one’s self.” Yiyun Li reads from her debut memoir, Dear Friend, From My Life I Write to You in Your Life (Random House, 2017), in this video produced by the Office of Communications at Princeton University. Li, whose novel Where Reasons End is forthcoming from Random House in February, is featured in “Portraits of Inspiration” in the January/February issue of Poets & Writers Magazine.

“A story or a character should change. The events that happen change us.” George R. R. Martin, whose book Fire & Blood: 300 Years Before A Game of Thrones (Bantam, 2018) is a history of the Targaryen family from his fantasy novel series A Song of Fire and Ice, talks to John Hodgman about how the realness in Stan Lee’s comic books influenced him as a writer.

Josh Malerman talks about writing novels while touring with his band, incorporating performance and radio play elements into his book readings, and the inspiration behind his debut novel, Bird Box (Ecco, 2014), in this video from the 2015 Midwest Literary Walk. The novel has been adapted into a feature film directed by Susanne Bier and starring Sandra Bullock, John Malkovich, Sarah Paulson, and Trevante Rhodes.

Bird Box (Ecco, 2014), the debut novel by Josh Malerman has been adapted into a feature film. Directed by Susanne Bier, the psychological thriller film stars Sandra Bullock, John Malkovich, Sarah Paulson, and Trevante Rhodes and follows a woman and her two children as they traverse a post-apocalyptic landscape while blindfolded to escape an unseen, supernatural adversary.

“You’ve got to do two very contradictory things as a writer: you’ve got to enjoy spending a lot of time alone—and a lot of people don’t—and you’ve also got to go out and see about the world and immerse yourself in that world....” Irvine Welsh, whose latest novel, Dead Men’s Trousers, is forthcoming from Melville House in February, contemplates the words of wisdom and advice he would offer to young writers in this interview with Christian Lund for Louisiana Channel.

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.

“That’s the moon—it’s the ghost of the sun wandering the sky at night,” says Daniel Kehlmann. In this video from Louisiana Channel, Kehlmann and fellow writers CAConrad, Georgi Gospodinov, Guadalupe Nettel, Delphine de Vigan, and Yoko Tawada discuss the moon’s mysterious presence and why writers are drawn to it as we watch visuals of the moon captured by NASA paired with Claude Debussy’s “Clair de Lune.”