Poets & Writers Theater

Watch the trailer for Klara and the Sun, a film adaptation of the 2021 novel of the same name by Nobel Prize–winning author Kazuo Ishiguro. Directed by Taika Waititi, the film stars Jenna Ortega as an “Artificial Friend” who is purchased by a mother (Amy Adams) for her ailing, heartbroken teenage daughter (Mia Tharia).

In this episode of the Memoir Nation podcast, hosts Brooke Warner and Grant Faulkner celebrate independent media in a conversation with Roxane Gay and Debbie Millman, who bought the literary magazine the Rumpus in 2025. For more on their new initiatives, read “Relaunching the Rumpus” by Ilana Masad in the November/December issue of Poets & Writers Magazine.

For this Pioneer Works event, Ben Lerner talks about how the instability of dialogue informed his latest novel, Transcription (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2026), and the pros and cons of personal technology for youth growing up today in a conversation with New Yorker staff writer Alexandra Schwartz.

Watch the trailer for the new film adaptation of Jane Austen’s Sense and Sensibility, directed by Georgia Oakley and starring Daisy Edgar-Jones, Esmé Creed-Miles, Caitríona Balfe, George MacKay, and Fiona Shaw.

In this WIRED interview with Katie Drummond, Emily St. John Mandel discusses how the current political climate in America informed the speculative catastrophe in her latest novel, Exit Party (Knopf, 2026), and shares how she connects her novels in what the New Yorker calls the “Mandel Cinematic Universe.”

In this Green Apple Books event, Black Ocean, a nonprofit independent publisher based in Boston and Chicago, celebrates its twentieth anniversary with readings from authors Carrie Olivia Adams, Kristin George Bagdanov, Nathan Hoks, and Zachary Schomburg.

In this episode of the Fashion Neurosis podcast hosted by Bella Freud, French Moroccan author and journalist Leïla Slimani talks about the dangers of gaining recognition as a writer, discovering the timelessness of literature through Dostoevsky and Tolstoy as a child, and what it means to dress like an intellectual.

In this Book Passage event, Téa Obreht reads from her fourth novel, Sunrise (Random House, 2026), and talks about her decision to write scene by scene without an outline, and her fascination with the American West after growing up in the former Yugoslavia in a conversation with Parini Shroff. “I think for me, the West has always occupied a really mythical space.”

In this Fine Arts Work Center event in Provincetown, Massachusetts, poet Hieu Minh Nguyen, writer Lydi Conklin, and photographer Ron Amato present their respective works. Nguyen reads a selection of poems from his third collection, Staying Still (Tin House, 2026), which is featured in Page One in the September/October 2026 issue of Poets & Writers Magazine.

In this episode of the Reclaiming With Monica Lewinsky podcast, Chang-rae Lee talks about his latest novel, A Tender Age (Riverhead Books, 2026), his choice to leave a career in finance in order to become a writer, and his experience writing the screenplay for the film adaptation of C Pam Zhang’s novel How Much of These Hills Is Gold, directed by Ang Lee.

In this On the Serendipitous Side podcast episode, Deesha Philyaw talks about the twenty-year journey of her first novel, The True Confessions of First Lady Freeman (Mariner Books, 2026), and how the story developed with the help of her agent and a satire writing class. A profile of Philyaw by Brian Gresko appears in the September/October 2026 issue of Poets & Writers Magazine.

“It’s the most personal novel I’ve ever written.” In this Penguin Random House Spring Book & Author Festival virtual event, Marlon James talks about his desire to present the world he grew up in through an exploration of queer life in Jamaica in the eighties and nineties in his new novel, The Disappearers (Riverhead Books, 2026), which is featured in Page One in the September/October 2026 issue of Poets & Writers Magazine.

In this Vogue Australia video, Mindy Seu shares how authors, such as Annie Ernaux, Lucy Lippard, and Ursula K. Le Guin, shaped her creative practice and influenced the writing of her books Cyberfeminism Index (Inventory Press, 2023) and A Sexual History of the Internet (Dark Forest Collective, 2025).

“I perhaps have a style, but don’t believe I have a voice.” In this Louisiana Channel interview, Max Porter speaks about rejecting a single authorial voice, preferring to weave multiple voices within his novels, and what it was like to watch a play adaptation of his 2015 novel, Grief Is the Thing With Feathers.

“I’ve always wanted to write a book about growing up and growing older.” In this episode of Poured Over: The Barnes & Noble Podcast hosted by Jenna Seery, Stacey Yu talks about the many books that shaped the writing of her debut novel, Kitten (Random House, 2026), and why she wanted to write a coming of age story.

In this Politics and Prose event with Lily Meyer, Sigrid Nunez talks about how bringing together characters and ideas led to her first collection of short stories, It Will Come Back to You (Riverhead Books, 2026), and how she feels about the dominance of autofiction in the current zeitgeist of literature.

In this Live Talks Los Angeles event, author and chef Eddie Huang speaks with Ottessa Moshfegh about his debut novel, Come Undone (One World, 2026), and his love for defying genres through autofiction. 

In this episode of the Fashion Neurosis podcast hosted by Bella Freud, Colm Tóibín talks about the importance of writing physical character details in stories, how books awards can sometimes feel like “a theater of cruelty,” and shares the backstory to his 2019 London Review of Books essay about his experience of diagnosis and treatment for testicular cancer.

In this virtual reading and conversation, Poets & Writers Magazine senior editor India Lena González introduces the five debut authors featured in “First Fiction 2026”: P.C. Verrone, author of Rabbit, Fox, Tar (Catapult, 2026); M Lin, author of The Memory Museum (Graywolf Press, 2026); Joe Bond, author of Hope House (Hub City Press, 2026); Amanda Rizkalla, author of Hungered (Henry Holt, 2026); and Devyn Defoe, author of Burnside (Astra House, 2026).

In this Today Show interview, Colson Whitehead talks about his novel Cool Machine (Doubleday, 2026), the third and final volume of his Harlem Trilogy, and his research process while writing crime fiction.