Poets & Writers Theater

“I just wanted to show you what is to me, home, and always will be,” says Andrew J. Graff in this video offering a view of the Michigan landscape that inspired his debut novel, Raft of Stars (Ecco, 2021), which is featured in Page One in the March/April issue of Poets & Writers Magazine.

“I consider myself essentially a storyteller who’s chosen the genre of poetry.” Lynne Thompson, author of Start With a Small Guitar (What Books Press, 2013) and Beg No Pardon (Perugia Press, 2007), speaks about family stories and how she came to poetry after a career in law with Mariano Zaro for the Poetry.LA interview series. Thompson is the 2021 poet laureate of Los Angeles.

In this virtual launch of Land of Big Numbers (Mariner Books, 2021) hosted by the Asian American Writers’ Workshop, author Te-Ping Chen reads from her debut story collection and speaks with Charles Yu about releasing a book during a pandemic. Land of Big Numbers is featured in Page One in the March/April issue of Poets & Writers Magazine.

“It is so painful to be loved sometimes. Intolerable even.” In this 2020 virtual event hosted by Salve Regina University, Melissa Febos reads from her new essay collection, Girlhood (Bloomsbury, 2021), and answers questions about her writing process. A profile of Febos by Brian Gresko appears in the March/April issue of Poets & Writers Magazine.

“When I first saw him, I knew then: This was the master for me.” Aravind Adiga’s Man Booker Prize–winning novel, The White Tiger, has been adapted into a Netflix film directed by Ramin Bahrani. Starring Adarsh Gourav, Priyanka Chopra Jonas, and Rajkummar Rao, the film follows an ambitious driver in India who escapes poverty through deceptive acts.

In this virtual book launch hosted by Books & Books in Florida, Dantiel W. Moniz discusses the inspiration behind her debut short story collection, Milk Blood Heat (Grove Press, 2021), with Lauren Groff, author of Florida (Riverhead Books, 2018). Milk Blood Heat is featured in Page One in the March/April issue of Poets & Writers Magazine.

“I’m not sorry for my one-way streets, my way or the highway, manly waters incompatible with my sex,” reads Arisa White from her poetry collection Who’s Your Daddy (Augury Books, 2021), which is featured in Page One in the March/April issue of Poets & Writers Magazine, for this Foglifter virtual event.

To All the Boys: Always and Forever is the final installment of the three-part Netflix film series based on the To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before YA novel series by Jenny Han. The series follows high schooler Lara Jean Song Covey, played by Lana Condor, and her relationship with her former crush Peter Kavinsky, played by Noah Centineo.

“Is this a voice that I can sustain throughout this novel? Will it continue to be, and also most importantly, can it sustain my curiosity?” In this AAWW virtual event, Chang-rae Lee reads from his novel My Year Abroad (Riverhead Books, 2021) and speaks with Bryan Washington about developing characters and publishing a book during a pandemic.

“Hannah dreams the family buries her mother, a woman they haven’t seen in more than forty years.” Eman Quotah celebrates the book launch for her debut novel, Bride of the Sea (Tin House, 2021), with author Susan Muaddi Darraj in this Politics and Prose virtual event. The novel is featured in Page One in the January/February issue of Poets & Writers Magazine.

“I’ve been in mourning about the experience of writing The Tradition. It really wore me out and I loved every second of it,” says Jericho Brown about writing his Pulitzer Prize–winning collection, The Tradition (Copper Canyon Press, 2019), and how he works through self-doubt in this installment of Line / Break hosted by Laura Buccieri, press director of publicity for Copper Canyon Press.

A new trailer for the limited Amazon series The Underground Railroad, a television adaptation of Colson Whitehead’s Pulitzer Prize–winning historical fiction novel of the same name, has been released by director Barry Jenkins. The reverse-motion trailer features music composed by Nicholas Britell.

“I am the blue chair island. I rock and the island rocks. I pull at a blue thread on the chair’s arm. I pull a hangnail from the third finger on my right hand.” In this Books Are Magic virtual event, Nadia Owusu reads from her debut memoir, Aftershocks (Simon & Schuster, 2021), and speaks with author Catherine E. McKinley.

“Everyone can do a paragraph.” Emily Rapp Black speaks about working with a writing partner during the pandemic in this video for the Throw Us a Line series hosted by Lighthouse Writers Workshop program director Andrea Dupree. Black’s new memoir, Sanctuary (Random House, 2021), is featured in Page One in the January/February issue of Poets & Writers Magazine.

Directed by Academy Award winner Martin Scorsese, Pretend It’s a City features the return of sardonic writer and public speaker Fran Lebowitz in conversation with the director as she shares anecdotes about her early life and career in New York City in the 1970s. The Netflix series continues the partnership of the longtime friends, who worked together on the 2010 HBO documentary Public Speaking.

“Not the wealth of the thousand / Not the segregated place / Not the segregated classroom, the segregated desk,” reads Rodney Gomez from his poem “Rio Grande Valley Litany” at this 2017 reading for the Poets Against Border Walls Collective in Hidalgo, Texas. Gomez’s poetry collection Arsenal With Praise Song (Orison Books, 2021) is featured in Page One in the January/February issue of Poets & Writers Magazine.

“What is lost is already behind the locked doors.” This mini-documentary by Made to Measure about the life of Joan Didion, outlines her early career as a research assistant at Vogue leading to her cult following in the sixties, and her literary impact as she was awarded the National Humanities Medal in 2012. Didion’s essay collection Let Me Tell You What I Mean (Knopf, 2021) is featured in Page One in the January/February issue of Poets & Writers Magazine.

“Librarians and libraries have such a special place in my heart because growing up, like a lot of people, they were a safe place to go to after school.” In this video for Baker & Taylor, a provider of books for public libraries, Mateo Askaripour talks about the importance of libraries and his debut novel, Black Buck (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2021), which is featured in Page One in the January/February issue of Poets & Writers Magazine.

In this 2018 video, Cheryl Boyce-Taylor reads a collaborative poem about her son Malik Taylor with South Carolina’s first poet laureate Marcus Amaker at the Free Verse poetry festival in Charleston. Boyce-Taylor’s fifth poetry collection, Mama Phife Represents (Haymarket Books, 2021), is featured in Page One in the January/February issue of Poets & Writers Magazine.

The Dig is a Netflix film adaptation starring Ralph Fiennes and Carey Mulligan based on the 2007 novel of the same name by John Preston, which reimagines the events of the 1939 excavation of Sutton Hoo in Suffolk, England.