Poets & Writers Theater

"A novel is a historic reenactment and a short story is a diorama." Elizabeth McCracken discusses the different challenges of writing a novel and a short story, and reads from her latest collection of short stories, Thunderstuck (Dial Press, 2014), at the 2014 Library of Congress National Book Festival in Washington, D.C. McCracken will deliver the keynote on January 9 at Poets & Writers Live in Austin, Texas.

"Can we reclaim a word? Can we take a word and drop it and crack it open, or are we always a prisoner to it?" Poets Terrance Hayes and Saeed Jones talk about craft, the evolution of language, and why America needs poetry for HEArt, a journal of contemporary literature and art that challenges discrimination and promotes social justice. Jones will join the Why We Write panel on January 9 at Poets & Writers Live in Austin, Texas.

"I fell in love with any number of literary writers... but I never fell out of love with genre." Benjamin Percy talks about genre fiction, favorite authors, and his novel Red Moon (Grand Central Publishing, 2013). Percy will lead the seminar, Staging the Iconic Moment: Set-Pieces, on January 9 at Poets & Writers Live in Austin, Texas.

Matthew Gavin Frank talks about one of his favorite characters from Pot Farm (University of Nebraska Press, 2012), a nonfiction account of his experience living on a marijuana farm in Northern California. Frank, whose most recent book, The Mad Feast: An Ecstatic Tour Through America's Food, was published by Liveright in November, will be a panelist at Poets & Writers Live in Austin, Texas on January 9.

With an introduction by poet Naomi Shihab Nye, Carrie Fountain reads from her books Burn Lake (Penguin, 2010) and Instant Winner (Penguin, 2014) as part of the Lannan Foundation's Poetry Sundays in Santa Fe, New Mexico. Fountain and Nye will be panelists at Poets & Writers Live in Austin, Texas on January 9.

The thirty-sixth annual O. Henry Pun-Off World Championships will be held on May 18 at the O. Henry Museum in Austin. Check out first-time competitor Jerzy Gwiazdowski as he wins Punniest of Show with this performance at last year's spoken-word event.

About a year ago Dean Young read his poem "Your Super Bookstore Recommends" for Teleportal Readings in Austin, Texas. Earlier this month Young underwent a successful heart transplant, some of the costs of which were offset by the ongoing fundraising efforts of the poetry community.