Poets & Writers Theater

For the Literary Hub’s Rekindled series, ZYZZYVA magazine editor Oscar Villalon interviews illustrator and cartoonist Lisa Brown about her book Long Story Short: 100 Classic Books in Three Panels (Algonquin Books, 2020), which distills well-known works of literature—including Atonement, Beloved, Madame Bovary, Twilight, and The Unbearable Lightness of Being—to three-panel comic strips.

In this Open Studio With Jared Bowen interview, playwright Kirsten Greenidge; Kerri Greenidge, historian and author of Black Radical: The Life and Times of William Monroe Trotter (Liveright, 2019); and Kaitlyn Greenidge, author of We Love You, Charlie Freeman (Algonquin Books, 2016) talk about growing up together as sisters and how their work often overlaps.

“The book is about what we do when in a long-term relationship something dramatically changes.” In this video, Caroline Leavitt talks about her novel, With or Without You, forthcoming in August from Algonquin Books, and encourages authors and readers to join her “nothing is canceled virtual book tour.”

“You don’t write a book for a market, a publisher, or an agent; you write it because your heart calls you to write it.” Tayari Jones speaks about her “most personal” novel Silver Sparrow (Algonquin Books, 2011) and about what keeps her going as a writer in this Waterstones video.

“It’s a confusing time to be a teenager in America.” In this Salon interview, Gabriel Bump speaks about the main character of his debut novel, Everywhere You Don’t Belong (Algonquin Books, 2020), an average, quiet teenager growing up in Chicago tackling the social issues around him. For more from Bump, read his installment of Ten Questions. 

Ross Gay reads from his forthcoming essay collection, The Book of Delights (Algonquin Books, 2019), at a 2017 reading in Washington, D.C. for the Field Office. Gay is featured in “Portraits of Inspiration” in the January/February issue of Poets & Writers Magazine.

“A good bookstore is your friend.” Ross Gay reads his essay about his love for independent bookstores and how they are a “laboratory for our coming together” at one of his favorite places, the Book Corner in Bloomington, Indiana. Gay’s essay collection, The Book of Delights, is forthcoming from Algonquin Books in February.

“Justin used to think the trees were God. But today, right here, he thinks the ocean might be God. All that power and weakness, spread out for us to see.” Silas House reads from his fifth novel, Southernmost (Algonquin Books, 2018), which is featured in Page One in the July/August issue of Poets & Writers Magazine.

On New Day Northwest, Jonathan Evison discusses how he approaches writing about class, what it’s like to have his novels adapted into films, and what inspired his new novel, Lawn Boy (Algonquin Books, 2018), which is featured in Page One in the May/June issue of Poets & Writers Magazine.

“This is a novel about marriage and about what we owe one another and what you can expect from another person.” Tayari Jones speaks about her fourth novel, An American Marriage (Algonquin Books, 2018), and what she loves about bookstores in this video for Barnes & Noble. Jones shares her experience at Ucross in “The Writers Retreats Where Big Books Are Born” in the March/April issue of Poets & Writers Magazine.

“Violence is part and parcel of country life.” Hillary Jordan’s debut novel, Mudbound (Algonquin Books, 2008), which won the 2006 Bellwether Prize, has been adapted into a feature film. Set in post–World War II in the Mississippi Delta, the film was directed and written by Dee Rees and stars Carey Mulligan, Garrett Hedlund, Jason Mitchell, and Mary J. Blige.

On Nashville Public Television’s A Word on Words, Lisa Ko speaks about her debut novel, The Leavers (Algonquin Books, 2017), which is longlisted for the 2017 National Book Award in fiction.

"Ezekiel likes meetings as much as he likes fiddle music and black garter belts and dancing, and he makes no distinction among these things, which all comfort him." Lee Smith reads from her novel The Devil's Dream (Berkeley Books, 1992) at the New School. Smith's memoir, Dimestore: A Writer's Life (Algonquin Books, 2016), is featured in Page One in the March/April issue of Poets & Writers Magazine.

Kevin Larimer, editor in chief of Poets & Writers Magazine, leads a conversation with editors Jeff Shotts of Graywolf Press and Chuck Adams of Algonquin Books, and authors Jeffrey Yang and Amy Rowland about what it means to be published by an independent press, the author-editor relationship, and how they work together to reach readers.

Tayari Jones answers questions about her writing process and discusses the obstacles she experienced in publishing her novel Silver Sparrow (Algonquin Books, 2011). Read Jones's interview with debut novelist Angela Flournoy in “First Fiction 2015" in the July/August issue of Poets & Writers Magazine.

Award-winning author Brock Clarke reads from his latest novel, The Happiest People in the World (Algonquin Books, 2014), at the 2014 Colgate Writers' Conference. Clarke is featured in Page One in the November/December issue of Poets & Writers Magazine.

Bill Roorbach's latest novel, published by Algonquin Books this month, explores the relationship between two strangers trapped in a cabin during a snowstorm. Algonquin Books is one of eleven small-press publishers featured in the new issue of Poets & Writers Magazine.

To promote his third novel, The Revised Fundamentals of Caregiving, published this month by Algonquin Books of Chapel Hill, Jonathan Evison is hitting the road for a tour that begins August 25 at Sunriver Books & Music in Sunriver, Oregon, and wraps up on October 28 at the Texas Book Festival in Austin.

You may want to turn up the volume because this unique clip, the book trailer for Elisabeth Tova Bailey's memoir, The Sound of a Wild Snail Eating (Algonquin Books, 2010), delivers exactly what the title promises. The memoir, which was named one of the best books of 2010 by the Huffington Post, follow's the author's observations of a forest snail that has taken up residence on her nightstand during a long illness.