Poets & Writers Theater

“I read so much, still, because I want to learn how to tell the perfect story.” In this Louisiana Channel interview, Alex Schulman, author most recently of the novel The Survivors (Doubleday, 2021), speaks about the impact reading has had on his life, the power of storytelling, and how he started his writing career as a blogger.

Watch this interview with Hanya Yanagihara on Late Night With Seth Meyers, in which she speaks about her novels To Paradise (Doubleday, 2022) and A Little Life (Doubleday, 2015), as well as how readers interact with her on social media.

“I love a story with an unreliable character where you’re not quite sure what’s going on. I really wanted to maintain that question and that tension throughout the book.” Rachel Yoder speaks about motherhood, publishing a book during the pandemic, and the writing process for her debut novel, Nightbitch (Doubleday, 2021), in this episode of A Mighty Blaze with Rachel Barenbaum.

Vinod Busjeet speaks about emigration versus immigration and how his debut novel, Silent Winds, Dry Seas (Doubleday, 2021), started out as a memoir in this virtual conversation with NYU Washington, DC lecturer Sydney Boyd. Busjeet is featured in “5 Over 50: 2021” in the November/December issue of Poets & Writers Magazine.

“It’s not all fun, you know, the usual terror of writing a book.” In this Waterstones interview, Colson Whitehead talks about his new novel, Harlem Shuffle (Doubleday, 2021), and how he gave himself permission to write a heist story. The novel is featured in Page One in the September/October issue of Poets & Writers Magazine.

“My daily life was one of hunger and fear, but all around me I saw skyscrapers and lights and beauty.” In this video, Qian Julie Wang talks about growing up as an undocumented child in New York City and what she hopes readers will take away from her debut memoir, Beautiful Country (Doubleday, 2021).

“Genre writing is an amazing place to try new words out as long as you provide good context.” In this video, Stacey Abrams discusses her love of language and word choice, as well as the writing process for her latest novel, While Justice Sleeps (Doubleday, 2021), with Merriam-Webster editors Ammon Shea and Adam Maid.

In this virtual event for Quail Ridge Books in Raleigh, North Carolina, the late Randall Kenan, author of the story collection If I Had Two Wings (Norton, 2020), and Ron Rash, author of In the Valley: Stories and a Novella Based on Serena (Doubleday, 2020), read from their books and discuss growing up in the South and their writing. Kenan’s If I Had Two Wings is longlisted for the 2020 National Book Award in fiction.

“The Nickel Academy becomes a proving ground for people’s goodness, for their tendency towards evil, and it proves character,” says Colson Whitehead about his latest novel, The Nickel Boys (Doubleday, 2019), in this video for the Get Lit virtual book club series with host of WNYC’s All Of It Alison Stewart.

“Don’t be embarrassed by what you like, just be ready to own it.” A Mighty Blaze’s Rachel Barenbaum speaks with Jean Kyoung Frazier about advice for emerging writers and the inspiration for her debut novel, Pizza Girl (Doubleday, 2020). Frazier is featured in “First Fiction 2020” in the July/August issue of Poets & Writers Magazine.

“The themes in the book involve missed opportunities and what it’s like to have something that you wish you’d done before, and you wonder how it would’ve changed your story.” In this video, Erin Morgenstern talks about the themes in her second novel, The Starless Sea (Doubleday, 2019), her writing process, literary genres, and what she’s currently reading.

A Million Little Pieces (Nan A. Talese/Doubleday, 2003), the controversial and fabricated best-selling memoir by James Frey, has been adapted into a feature film directed by Sam Taylor-Johnson. Starring Aaron Taylor-Johnson, Billy Bob Thornton, and Odessa Young, the film focuses on the life of a young writer seeking treatment for drug and alcohol addiction.

“You pick the right tool for the job, and sometimes fantasy is a way to open up a story and convey a universal truth, and sometimes realism.” Colson Whitehead speaks with PBS NewsHour’s Jeffrey Brown about his writing process and the true story that inspired his latest novel, The Nickel Boys, which was published this week by Doubleday.

“I was very lucky to have family members who are all very outgoing and love to hear people talk about them.” On Late Night With Seth Meyers, Ingrid Rojas Contreras talks about how her family and childhood in Colombia inspired her first novel, Fruit of the Drunken Tree (Doubleday, 2018).

Sophie Mackintosh reads from her debut novel, The Water Cure (Doubleday, 2019), at Waterstones bookstore and talks about being influenced by Jeffrey Eugenides’s novel The Virgin Suicides, Yorgos Lanthimos’s film Dogtooth, Joan Lindsay’s novel Picnic at Hanging Rock, and the recent sociopolitical climate.

Crazy Rich Asians (Doubleday, 2013), Kevin Kwan’s debut novel about a Chinese American woman’s introduction to her boyfriend’s wealthy family in Singapore, has been adapted into a feature film. Directed by John M. Chu, the romantic comedy stars Awkwafina, Henry Golding, Ken Jeong, Constance Wu, and Michelle Yeoh.

In 1964, the memoirist, novelist, and biographer James Lord sat for a portrait for the artist Alberto Giacometti. The painting session was intended to take only a few hours, but lasted weeks and became the inspiration for Lord’s book A Giacometti Portrait (Doubleday, 1965). In this film adaptation of the book, The Final Portrait, written and directed by Stanley Tucci, Armie Hammer stars as Lord with Geoffrey Rush as Giacometti.

At the Wheeler Centre, Hanya Yanagihara speaks about how her novel A Little Life (Doubleday, 2015) is “willfully out of step” with contemporary literature. Shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize and National Book Award in 2015, the novel has been optioned by producer Scott Rudin as a limited series.

“A sentence just came out of nowhere and it said: ‘So here I am, upside down in a woman.’” In a conversation with Christopher Beha at the 92nd Street Y, Ian McEwan discusses the origins of his new novel, Nutshell (Nan A. Talese/Doubleday, 2016), which is narrated by a fetus.

"I wanted to regain control of experiencing my life in time." Heidi Julavits speaks about the inspiration behind her latest book, The Folded Clock: A Diary (Doubleday, 2015), and why bad book reviews prompted her to start the Believer.