Poets & Writers Theater

“I was really interested in the idea of the body as a place of imprisonment but also, the body as a place of liberation.” Olivia Laing speaks about her latest book, Everybody: A Book About Freedom (Norton, 2021), and how she addresses the themes of illness, sexual violence, and incarceration with imagery and by including historical figures of the past century in this conversation with author Maggie Nelson for the Center for Fiction.

In this Center for Fiction virtual event, Sora Kim-Russell, editor and Korean literature translator, joins Alex Zucker for a conversation about revision, editing, and co-translation. The center’s Literary Translation Clinics are a monthly series of knowledge-sharing open sessions with a focus on literary translation as a profession hosted by members of the translator collective, Cedilla & Co.

In this Center for Fiction video, Brian Gresko, host of Lit Hub’s Antibody: A Quarantine Reading Series, moderates this all-star fundraiser reading for the Book Industry Charitable Foundation (Binc) featuring Jericho Brown, Carmen Maria Machado, Celese Ng, and Karen Russell.

“Jeremy could not move, speak. Happenings were happening too fast, and his mind switched from simple sentences.” In this virtual Center for Fiction event, Tracy O’Neill reads from her new novel, Quotients (Soho Press, 2020), and speaks with Gina Apostol about the book’s themes and how they relate to our times.

To celebrate the launch of The Poets & Writers Complete Guide to Being a Writer (Avid Reader Press, 2020), authors Mary Gannon and Kevin Larimer speak with novelist Nicole Dennis-Benn, literary agent Annie Hwang, publicist Michael Taeckens, and publisher and editor Jamia Wilson about the need for new voices in literature and the ins and outs of the literary world in this online event hosted by the Center for Fiction.

In a craft talk at the Center for Fiction in New York City, A. M. Homes discusses the value of having a writing routine, how she approaches novels and short stories differently, and her fascination with Barbie. Homes is the author of Days of Awe (Viking, 2018), which is featured in Page One in the July/August issue of Poets & Writers Magazine.

“One person’s didacticism is another person’s revelation.” At the Center for Fiction, Parul Sehgal moderates a conversation with authors Viet Thanh Nguyen and Chinelo Okparanta as part of the 2017 PEN World Voices Festival.

“There was something blurry about it, how she tipped moment by moment between woman and child.” In this 2012 video, Leopoldine Core reads from her short story “Teenage Hate” at the Center for Fiction. Her debut short story collection, When Watched (Penguin Books, 2016), is a finalist for the 29th annual Lambda Literary Awards.

“You have to really free your mind from the word obligation.” During an event at the Center for Fiction, authors Francisco Goldman, Idra Novey, and Rivka Galchen answer questions from the audience about moving between fiction and other genres, which leads to a discussion about the importance of donuts.

"I wanted to write about that moment where everything is at such a high pitch...that you could make one bad decision that could change your life forever." Emma Cline speaks about her debut novel, The Girls (Random House, 2016), which is longlisted for the Center for Fiction's First Novel Prize.

Rumaan Alam reads from his short story "A Certainty" at an event for the Center for Fiction's literary magazine, The Literarian, alongside Terese Svoboda and Sigrid Nunez. Alam is featured in "First Fiction 2016" in the July/August issue of Poets & Writers Magazine and reads from his debut novel, Rich and Pretty (Ecco, 2016), on Ampersand: The Poets & Writers Podcast.

Jhumpa Lahiri talks with Ann Goldstein, translator of Elena Ferrante's novels, about Ferrante, literature, translation, and writing at the Center for Jewish History. Lahiri, who is featured in the the March/April issue of Poets & Writers Magazine, has a new memoir, In Other Words (Knopf, 2016), which is translated from the Italian by Goldstein. For more from Lahiri and Goldstein, listen to the latest episode of Ampersand: The Poets & Writers Podcast.

“You might as well start by confessing your greatest shame. Anything else would just be exposition.” Sarah Manguso reads from her essay collection 300 Arguments (Graywolf Press, 2017) and speaks with Paris Review editor in chief Lorin Stein at the Center for Fiction.

"What's very odd is the difference between the dream world of the United States and the reality." In a conversation at the Center for Fiction in 2012, Irish novelists Belinda McKeon and Colm Tóibín discuss the struggles and triumphs that come with writing while traveling between Ireland and the United States.

"A written story can inhabit an individual vision far more intensely and deeply than film is able to do." Mary Gaitskill, whose new novel, The Mare (Pantheon Books, 2015), is featured in Page One in the November/December issue of Poets & Writers Magazine, talks about the powerful worlds that can be built by great literature.

Ruth Rendell speaks about how to get into the mind of a character in a talk at the Center for Fiction in New York City. Rendell, best known for her Chief Inspector Wexford series, passed away on May 2 at the age of eighty-five.