Poets & Writers Theater

“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.

“I was looking for the story the whole time,” says CJ Hauser about spending time with field scientists for the research that went into her second novel, Family of Origin (Doubleday, 2019), in this interview on Late Night With Seth Meyers.

“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.

"John is so many miles from love now and home. This is the story of his strangest trip." In Beatlebone (Doubleday, 2015), Kevin Barry's second novel, John Lennon hopes to escape stardom by fleeing to a remote island off the west coast of Ireland with his shape-shifting driver Cornelius O'Grady leading them through a surreal, magical odyssey. The novel is shortlisted for the 2015 Goldsmiths Prize.

The Starless Sea (Doubleday, 2019), the follow-up to Erin Morgenstern’s debut novel, The Night Circus, follows a graduate student who discovers a library book that inexplicably tells a story from his own past leading him to a mysterious underground world filled with ancient books, lost cities, pirates, painters, and lovers.

Colson Whitehead, whose new novel, The Underground Railroad (Doubleday, 2016), is featured in Page One of the September/October issue of Poets & Writers Magazine, speaks with Oprah Winfrey about the inspiration behind the book.

In this video for Mashable, Chuck Palahniuk reads an imagined kid-friendly version of his novel Fight Club (Norton, 1996). Palahniuk's debut short story collection, Make Something Up: Stories You Can't Unread, was published in May by Doubleday.

"Creating is not magic, but work. And anyone can create. Necessity is not the mother of invention. You are." In this forthcoming book from Doubleday, debut author Kevin Ashton explores humanity's greatest creations, and the seemingly unremarkable individuals, gradual steps, multiple failures, and ordinary acts behind them.

"I have a good poker face because I'm half dead inside." Colson Whitehead reads excerpts from his new book, The Noble Hustle, chronicling his experience preparing for, and then competing in, the World Series of Poker. Read Kevin Nance's interview with Whitehead—on how he met his agent Nicole Aragi—in the July/August issue of Poets & Writers Magazine.

Ira Glass, Calvin Trillin, and others are featured in this trailer for Rakoff’s posthumous book, Love, Dishonor, Marry, Die, Cherish, Perish, a novel in verse forthcoming in July from Doubleday. One of the best and funniest essayists of our time, Rakoff died of cancer on August 9, 2012. He was forty-seven years old.

In this clip, author James Salter speaks about visiting France for the first time, in 1950, an experience that he wrote about in his third novel, A Sport and a Pastime, originally published by Doubleday in 1967 and recently released as an e-book by Open Road Media.

In a short video from earlier this year, the author of three essay collections, including his most recent, Half Empty (Doubleday, 2010), and a frequent contributor to This American Life, talks about why he writes, the nature of creativity, and why writing only gets harder. Rakoff died on Thursday night after a battle with cancer. He was forty-seven.