Poets & Writers Theater

This Wall Street Journal video analyzes the history and business model of the bookstore chain Barnes & Noble and how they are adopting the strategies of independent bookstores by empowering their local booksellers to make more decisions on inventory and displays in order to boost sales.

In this video, Simon & Schuster president and CEO Jonathan Karp gives writers advice on how to get a literary agent and their books published, including useful websites and reference books such as The Poets & Writers Complete Guide to Being a Writer (Avid Reader Press, 2020).

Filmed at the Milwaukee Public Library, this video featuring local artists Genesis Renji, Klassik, and Marli Amor aims to raise awareness for Penguin Random House’s All Ways Black initiative, which is partnering with Little Free Libraries to build a number of free libraries with a curated selection of Black authors and classic stories. For every share of the video on social media, Penguin Random House has pledged to donate a book to the initiative.

“I think there’s still a hunger for reading, for the print book, for something you hold in your hand and take with you,” says Emily Powell, owner and president of Powell’s Books in Portland, Oregon, about the struggles independent bookstores face today in this CBS Saturday Morning interview with Michelle Miller.

“I have heard my father tell a wide variation of the same five stories but you can affix a certain moral to one—you can affix an entry point, an exit point, an image—that makes it feel like a new story every time,” says Hanif Abdurraqib in this lecture on the nature and impact of storytelling for CreativeMornings in Columbus, Ohio. “Twelve Things That Help Me Set My Table” by Abdurraqib appears in the January/February issue of Poets & Writers Magazine.

Watch TIME Magazine’s compilation of their one hundred must-read books of 2022, which includes books by Nuar Alsadir, Franny Choi, Isaac Fitzgerald, CJ Hauser, Jay Hopler, Oscar Hokeah, Yiyun Li, Sarah Thankam Matthews, and Ocean Vuong. 

“A free society does not ban books.” Pulitzer Prize-winning New York Times reporter Nikole Hannah-Jones speaks about her personal journey to develop The 1619 Project: A New Origin Story (One World, 2021) as well as the attempts in certain states to ban the book from schools in this interview for The Late Show With Stephen Colbert.

Have you ever been curious about the history of words like “cool” or “on fleek?” In this WIRED magazine video, linguists Nicole Holliday and Ben Zimmer talk about the origins and trends of popular slang words, old and new.

“What does it mean when we say books unite us? It means that books can be the tethers, that books can connect human beings.” In this video, Jason Reynolds, honorary chair of Banned Books Week 2021, talks about the importance of reading a range of narratives and stories that make up this “tapestry of life” and the danger of censoring that knowledge. “To censor a book is to damage the framework in which we live,” says Reynolds.

“These times are really ripe for different opportunities and taking different approaches to things because everyone’s sort of making it up as they go along.” In this BLDRfly video, Wisteria Bristol, Peter Jones, and Sofia Miranda, co-owners of Trident Booksellers & Café in Boulder, Colorado, speak about shifting the store to an employee-owned model during the pandemic and how that has affected their connection to the community. For more, read “From Booksellers to Owners” by Lynn Rosen in the May/June issue of Poets & Writers Magazine.

Who doesn’t appreciate a nice notebook to write in? Belgian expat and artist Henry might be taking his love of Moleskine notebooks a step too far in this New Yorker Shorts & Murmurs film written, performed, and directed by Sam Bronowski.

“By the pricking of my thumbs, something wicked this way comes.” Watch the trailer for The Tragedy of Macbeth, a film based on the play of the same name by William Shakespeare, written and directed by Joel Coen and starring Denzel Washington, Frances McDormand, and Corey Hawkins.

“Human creativity is nature manifest in us.” In this TED Talk video, actor and author Ethan Hawke speaks about the importance of creativity, the necessity of taking leaps to express yourself, and how we turn to poetry for sustenance.

House of Gucci is an upcoming film based on Sara Gay Forden’s 2000 book, The House of Gucci: A Sensational Story of Murder, Madness, Glamour, and Greed. The anticipated film is directed by Ridley Scott and stars Lady Gaga, Adam Driver, Salma Hayek, Jared Leto, and Al Pacino.

“It’s all about providing access, not only to education, not only to learning, but also to a free public space where people can actually come together and engage,” says copresident Andreas Dracopoulos of the newly renovated and transformed Stavros Niarchos Foundation Library, a branch of the New York Public Library in Midtown Manhattan that reopened in June.

“It seemed I had stumbled into a collective desire to connect in one of the only ways that felt safe to people.” In this Pop-Up Magazine video, Rachel Syme speaks about organizing a worldwide pen pal exchange called Penpalooza, which is featured in “Pandemic Pen Pals” in the March/April issue of Poets & Writers Magazine.

“For people who have so little…it’s so deeply appreciated that it’s almost life-changing.” In this 2010 video, Gary Fine speaks about the Prisoner Express program, which sends packages of books along with a personalized, handwritten note to participants who are incarcerated. For more on the growth of the program, read “Books Offer Lifeline in Incarceration” by Alissa Greenberg in the January/February issue of Poets & Writers Magazine. 

“You knew that she was motivated by the basic concept that we’re here for a short while, and we have to make sure we make it about something larger than just ourselves.” In this video from the 2020 National Book Awards Ceremony, authors and colleagues speak about the influence of Carolyn Reidy, the late president and CEO of Simon & Schuster, who was honored with the National Book Foundation’s 2020 Literarian Award for Outstanding Service to the American Literary Community. Reidy died on May 12, 2020 at the age of seventy-one.

In this Literary Hub video, Book Marks editors Dan Sheehan and Katie Yee offer a week in review of book news, including the Center for Fiction’s 2020 First Novel Prize longlist and plans for a new HBO Max series of bedtime stories read by celebrities such as Idris Elba, Lucy Liu, and Keanu Reeves.

“If we only read the same type of authors all our lives it’s like you’re only hearing one thread, one voice.” In this video from the 2019 Louisiana Literature festival, Elif Shafak talks about reading the same books over and over again as a child, and why it’s more inspiring to read “from East and West, fiction and nonfiction.”