Poets & Writers Theater
Every day we share a new clip of interest to creative writers—author readings, book trailers, publishing panels, craft talks, and more. So grab some popcorn, filter the theater tags by keyword or genre, and explore our sizable archive of literary videos.
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“To me, it was really important to do justice to the complexity of the lives of queer and trans people in my community, and the lives of queer and trans people of color more broadly.” In this Simon & Schuster video, Zeyn Joukhadar speaks about the journey of the protagonist in his second novel, The Thirty Names of Night (Atria Books, 2020). For more Joukhadar, read his installment of Ten Questions.
Tags: Fiction | Zeyn Joukhadar | The Thirty Names of Night | Atria Books | Simon & Schuster | 2020 -
“I write from the perspective of the suffering character in this novel but also from his wife and his closest friend,” says Brian Platzer about his second novel, The Body Politic (Atria Books, 2020), which is partially based on his own experiences with a neurological disorder. In this video, Platzer explains the premise of the book and how writing it helped him in his personal life.
Tags: Fiction | Brian Platzer | The Body Politic | 2020 | Atria Books -
“This story is not just about an immigrant girl making her way through the world, but it’s a story of a girl who is fighting hard for her American dream.” In this video, Reyna Grande discusses her memoir A Dream Called Home (Atria Books, 2018), a sequel to her best-selling memoir The Distance Between Us, and the inspiration she hopes her books will bring to young readers.
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“These are human stories of life and love and loss.” Matt Gallagher, a former U.S. Army captain and a writing instructor at the nonprofit Words After War, discusses the war stories that inspired his debut novel, Youngblood (Atria Books, 2016).
Tags: Fiction | Matt Gallagher | Youngblood | Atria Books | 2016 | Words After War | veterans -
"She could taste with all of her skin, including her eyelids." Author and naturalist Sy Montgomery describes her first meeting with Athena, a giant Pacific octopus, at the New England Aquarium in Boston. This encounter spurred her to write The Soul of an Octopus (Atria Books, 2015), a finalist for the 2015 National Book Award for Nonfiction.
Tags: 2015 | National Book Award | reading | Atria Books | Sy Montgomery | The Soul of an Octopus | Creative Nonfiction -
You (Emily Bestler Books/Atria, 2014), Caroline Kepnes’s psychological thriller debut about a New York bookstore manager’s obsession with an aspiring writer, has been adapted into a Lifetime television series. The series, which has been renewed for a second season, stars Penn Badgley, Zach Cherry, Nicole Kang, Elizabeth Lail, Shay Mitchell, and Luca Padovan.
Tags: Fiction | You | Caroline Kepnes | Atria Books | Emily Bestler Books | trailer | television series | television adaptation | bookstore | 2014 | 2018 -
In this video, Jennifer Baker, editor of the short story anthology Everyday People: The Color of Life (Atria Books, 2018), speaks with Nana Brew-Hammond about her story “Wisdom.” The anthology is a collective of work by established and emerging writers of color, including Mia Alvar, Alexander Chee, and Mitchell S. Jackson.
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Chloe Benjamin speaks about the passion, humility, and patience involved in publishing her debut novel, The Anatomy of Dreams (Atria Books, 2014), likening the long process to an elephant pregnancy.
Tags: 2014 | Chloe Benjamin | The Anatomy of Dreams | Atria Books | Fiction -
Actor Dave Foley (The Kids in the Hall, NewsRadio) reads “Suck It,” a poem from Suzanne Weber’s To What Miserable Wretches Have I Been Born: Revenge Poems for Babies and Toddlers, forthcoming from Atria Books, an imprint of Simon & Schuster, in April.