Poets & Writers Theater

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.

Ada Limón speaks about her poetry collections Bright Dead Things (Milkweed Editions, 2015) and The Carrying (Milkweed Editions, 2018) with PBS Books at the 2018 AWP Annual Conference & Book Fair. Limón is interviewed by Carrie Fountain in “The Poetry of Perseverance” in the September/October issue of Poets & Writers Magazine.

“I didn’t have a chance / to say a word before you became / a character in the news...” Khaled Hosseini, Rita Dove, Philip Gourevitch, and Siri Hustvedt read Liu Xia’s poem “June 2nd, 1989” from Empty Chairs (Graywolf Press, 2015), translated from the Chinese by Ming Di and Jennifer Stern. PEN America and Amnesty International collaborated on the video series as a call to free Liu Xia from house arrest in Beijing, where she has been held since her late husband, Nobel Peace Prize laureate Liu Xiaobo, was imprisoned in 2009.

“My family is a group of redwoods / that sought god instead of ground...” Samoan American poet William Nu’utupu Giles reads his poem “Prescribed Fire” at the 2015 National Poetry Slam. Giles won the National Underground Poetry Individual Competition in 2015, the first Pacific Islander to win the award.

Ramón García, author of the poetry collections The Chronicles (Red Hen Press, 2015) and Other Countries (What Books Press, 2010), reads his poems and speaks with Mariano Zaro for the Poetry.LA series about how his suburban childhood in Modesto, California has influenced his writing.

In this video, John Keene reads from his short story “Cold” from his collection Counternarratives (New Directions, 2015) at the Poetry Center at San Francisco State University. Keene is a 2018 recipient of the Windham-Campbell Prize.

“Poems ask you to...really think empathetically, compassionately, and deeply about things.” Aaron Coleman, whose chapbook, St. Trigger (Button Poetry, 2016), won the 2015 Button Poetry Prize, talks about his writing interests and the power of poetry as a tool that can shift everyday language and change perspectives.

In this video, Halle Butler reads her short story “The Restaurant Business” alongside her illustrations at the Brain Frame performative comics and zine series in Chicago. Butler is the author of the debut novel, Jillian (Curbside Splendor, 2015), and a 2017 National Book Foundation 5 Under 35 honoree.

“Language is tough. Using the right words is so important to me.” Paul Beatty, author of the Man Booker Prize–winning novel, The Sellout (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2015), speaks about the labor of writing and his advice to students on Late Night With Seth Meyers.

The Glass Castle (Scribner, 2005), the best-selling debut memoir by Jeannette Walls about her childhood in a nomadic family dealing with dysfunction and poverty, has been adapted into a feature film. Directed by Destin Daniel Cretton, the film stars Woody Harrelson, Brie Larson, and Naomi Watts.

“I had a dream of having poetry at the intersections of New York, where all kinds of people pass through daily,” says Marie Howe, former New York State poet laureate, about the inspiration for the Poetry in Motion: The Poet Is In festival. The annual National Poetry Month event is hosted by the Poetry Society of America and MTA Arts & Design, and features poems written on request by award-winning poets.

In this video, Challis Popkey speaks with author Sarah Gerard about her novel, Binary Star (Two Dollar Radio, 2015), and her first essay collection, Sunshine State (Harper Perennial, 2017). Gerard’s debut essay collection is featured in Page One of the May/June 2017 issue of Poets & Writers Magazine.

Vievee Francis reads her poems “Parched” and “Paradise” for Voluble, a Los Angeles Review of Books channel. Francis received the 2017 Kingsley Tufts Award for her poetry collection Forest Primeval (Northwestern University Press, 2015).

“Innovation in every single art form is necessary in order for us to be able to imagine something else.” In this video from Furious Flower, Dawn Lundy Martin discusses her fascination with the Slovenian philosopher Slavoj Žižek, collaborating with the Black Took Collective, and the value of experimental poetry.

“We gaze into your eyes, eyes, eyes, eyes. / We forget the display is blind.” Sandra Beasley, winner of the 2008 Maureen Egen Writers Exchange Award in poetry, reads “Inventory” from her third poetry collection, Count the Waves (Norton, 2015).

In this video, Book Riot offers six recommendations for books that feature refugees including Girl at War (Random House, 2015) by Sara Novi­ć, Inside Out and Back Again (Harper, 2011) by Thanhha Lai, and Exit West (Riverhead Books, 2017) by Mohsin Hamid.

“Many stories with real urgency and momentum grow out of a simple request; someone says to someone else, ‘There's something I want you to do.’” Charles Baxter, author of the short story collection There’s Something I Want You to Do (Pantheon, 2015), delivers a lecture on dramatic structure and how to create urgency and momentum in stories for the Word Works series at Hugo House.

“For me, books are the things that tell you what you need to do in life and they’re also the things that help you make sense of your life.” Will Schwalbe, author of Books for Living (Knopf, 2016), speaks with PBS NewsHour’s Jeffrey Brown about the importance of reading and the books that have taught him life lessons such as Paula Hawkins’s The Girl on the Train (Riverhead Books, 2015), James Baldwin’s Giovanni’s Room (Dial Press, 1956), and Toni Morrison’s Song of Solomon (Knopf, 1977).

Jon Boilard, whose first short story collection, Settright Road (Dzanc Books, 2017), is featured in Page One in the January/February issue of Poets & Writers Magazine, reads from his second novel, The Castaway Lounge (Dzanc Books, 2015), at the Why There Are Words reading series.

Joshua Mohr reads from his novel All This Life (Soft Skull Press, 2015) and talks about the need for artists and publishers to transgress against cultures of homogeneity. Mohr's debut memoir, Sirens (Two Dollar Radio, 2017), is featured in Page One in the January/February issue of Poets & Writers Magazine.