Poets & Writers Theater

Directed by Martin Scorsese, this film adaptation of journalist David Grann’s 2017 book Killers of the Flower Moon: The Osage Murders and the Birth of the FBI stars Robert DeNiro, Leonardo DiCaprio, and Lily Gladstone. Set in 1920s Oklahoma, the film depicts the serial murder of members of the oil-wealthy Osage Nation.

In this event recorded at the Brooklyn Heights Public Library and hosted by Books Are Magic, Terrance Hayes discusses his new poetry collection, So to Speak (Penguin Books, 2023), and his new essay collection, Watch Your Language: Visual and Literary Reflections on a Century of American Poetry (Penguin Books, 2023), with poet and memoirist Mary Karr.

Writers and editors Victor Dwyer and Charlotte Gill discuss how they determine good writing from bad writing, what they look for in a first read, and the changing landscape of writing in this 2014 conversation moderated by journalist Ian Brown at the Banff Centre for Arts and Creativity in Alberta, Canada. “There’s the sense that the writer is being completely frank with their audience and yet at the same time, they’re completely in control and utterly trustworthy,” says Gill.

Eirinie Carson talks about her debut memoir, The Dead Are Gods (Melville House, 2023), which was inspired by the sudden loss of a close friend, in this conversation with author Savala Nolan at the Booksmith bookstore in San Francisco. Carson is featured in “The New Nonfiction 2023” in the September/October issue of Poets & Writers Magazine.

In this short video, Andrew Leland walks through the streets of Northampton, Massachusetts, and introduces his debut book, The Country of the Blind: A Memoir at the End of Sight (Penguin Press, 2023), in which he writes about his experience with vision loss. Leland is featured in “The New Nonfiction 2023” in the September/October issue of Poets & Writers Magazine.

“I was born to tell my story and the story of my people, to make everyone aware that we exist still, that we breathe still.” In this virtual Charis Circle event, Leah Myers reads from her debut memoir, Thinning Blood: A Memoir of Family, Myth, and Identity (Norton, 2023), and discusses how Native folklore informed the structure of her book in a conversation with author Kung Li Sun. Myers is featured in “The New Nonfiction 2023” in the September/October issue of Poets & Writers Magazine.

“What surprised me was that I discovered I enjoyed it sometimes: writing prose.” In this Books Are Magic event, Shane McCrae speaks with Patricia Smith and reads from his debut memoir, Pulling the Chariot of the Sun: A Memoir of a Kidnapping (Scribner, 2023), which is featured in Page One in the September/October issue of Poets & Writers Magazine.

“I was in Los Angeles for less than a month before I got scouted for a cult.” In this Zibby’s Bookstore event, Kate Flannery speaks with Amanda Montell and reads from her debut memoir, Strip Tees: A Memoir of Millennial Los Angeles (Henry Holt, 2023), which is featured in Page One in the July/August issue of Poets & Writers Magazine.

“Memory is my instrument and my element, my material,” says French Nobel Prize–winning author Annie Ernaux in this Louisiana Channel interview with Matthias Dressler-Bredsdorff in Copenhagen. “I’m nobody when I write. I search. When I write, I know I have a woman’s experience.”

In this Green Apple Books event, Madison Davis reads from her essay collection, The Loved Ones: Essays to Bury the Dead (Dzanc Books, 2023), which is featured in Page One in the July/August issue of Poets & Writers Magazine, and speaks about hope in the face of grief with author Ivy Johnson.

In this recorded event, Terrance Hayes, Claudia Rankine, and Ocean Vuong, acclaimed authors and professors at New York University’s Creative Writing Program, read from their work and participate in a conversation together for a packed audience at NYU Skirball. Rankine is the recipient of the 2014 Jackson Poetry Prize.

“There’s something about straight lines on a page and the ability to use punctuation in an expected and familiar way that changes the way you do honesty on the page.” Poet and essayist Camonghne Felix speaks about mental health and heartbreak, and the vulnerability she found in writing her debut memoir, Dyscalculia: A Love Story of Epic Miscalculation (One World, 2023), for this Live From NYPL event with multi-disciplinary artist Bunny Michael.

“In Lagos, we name our girls / Darling, Sincere, Precious, because / A name is a stake in the grave.” Omotara James reads her poem “Half Girl, Then Elegy,” which appears in her collection, Song of My Softening (Alice James Books, 2022), for this virtual reading with Charif Shanahan and Maggie Smith, hosted by Kaveh Akbar, poetry editor of the Nation.

“Books sustain us. Books inspire us. Books fortify us. Books help us become who we are,” says poet John Keene in this video featuring National Book Award–winning authors—including Tess Gunty, Megan McDowell, Imani Perry, Samanta Schweblin, and Sabaa Tahir—speaking about why they believe books matter for the National Book Foundation’s Read With NBF program.

In this 92NY virtual reading, Lynn Melnick speaks about how Dolly Parton’s songs helped shape the structure of her memoir, I’ve Had to Think Up a Way to Survive: On Trauma, Persistence, and Dolly Parton (University of Texas Press, 2022), in a conversation with poet Deborah Paredez.

“My whole task in writing a book is to get closer; to hear what I’m hearing more clearly and to see what I’m seeing more clearly.” In this conversation for the Reading the Room podcast, Amina Cain speaks about her book A Horse at Night: On Writing (Dorothy, a Publishing Project, 2022) and her creative process with host Jaylen Lopez. 

In this Books Are Magic event, Greg Marshall reads from his debut memoir, Leg: The Story of a Limb and the Boy Who Grew From It (Abrams Press, 2023), and discusses what inspires his writing with author Chloé Cooper Jones. Marshall is featured in Literary MagNet in the July/August issue of Poets & Writers Magazine.

National Book Award nominees Kali Fajardo-Anstine, author of Sabrina & Corina (One World, 2019), and Clint Smith, author of How the Word Is Passed: A Reckoning With the History of Slavery Across America (Little, Brown, 2021), discuss the convergences and divergences of rewriting shared memory across genres in this 2022 National Book Foundation event moderated by Dolen Perkins-Valdez.

In this 2020 BookTube episode, David Sedaris speaks about his candid and confessional style of writing, his family life, and lessons learned with Joel Kim Booster, Cindy Pham, Jake Roper, and Francine Simone.

In this PBS NewsHour report, Jeffrey Brown speaks to the teams behind memoir publishing platforms LifeTime Memoirs and StoryTerrace, which help anyone looking to publish a memoir about their lives or those of loved ones.