Poets & Writers Theater

“We tend to write about things that surprise us.” In this 2011 clip from a 92Y event in New York City, Joyce Carol Oates reads from and discusses the experience of writing her memoir A Widow’s Story (Ecco, 2011) with poet and essayist Henri Cole.

In this virtual conversation for the Brown Girl Collective Book Club, Evette Dionne, author of Weightless: Making Space for My Resilient Body and Soul (Ecco, 2022), speaks with Marcie L. Thomas about writing her book and researching the biases placed against Black women in healthcare. Dionne’s essay collection is featured in Page One in the January/February issue of Poets & Writers Magazine.

“Scientists say the average human/ life gets three months longer every year. / By this math, death will be optional,” reads Nicole Sealey from her poem “The First Person Who Will Live to Be One Hundred and Fifty Years Old Has Already Been Born,” which appears in her collection Ordinary Beast (Ecco, 2017), in this reading with Morgan Parker, author of Magical Negro (Tin House, 2019), at Scripps College.

“What persuades in poetry, what moves, what transforms—and what is memorable—starts with music.” Jorie Graham talks about the importance of musicality and the influences of American modernist and English romantic poetry on her writing in this Big Think video. Graham’s collection Fast (Ecco, 2017) is featured in Page One in the May/June 2017 issue of Poets & Writers Magazine.

“For a long time, I worked day jobs that were different from the one I have now.” In this Books Are Magic recorded event, Jami Attenberg reads from her memoir, I Came All This Way to Meet You: Writing Myself Home (Ecco, 2022), and speaks about her writing process with author Kristen Arnett. For more Attenberg, read “1000 Words of Summer: How an Accountability Project Opened Up My Writing Life” in the May/June issue of Poets & Writers Magazine.

“Here is another reason to write a memoir: to utter what must not be erased.” In this 2017 PBS NewsHour video, Richard Ford speaks about his reasons for writing, Between Them: Remembering My Parents (Ecco, 2017), a memoir about his parents. “I wrote about my parents because, decades after their deaths and when I was no longer young, I realized that I plainly missed them.”

In this virtual poetry reading hosted by Annie Bloom’s Books, Teresa K. Miller reads from her new collection, Borderline Fortune (Penguin Books, 2021), and Amanda Moore reads from her debut collection, Requeening (Ecco, 2021), both winners of the 2020 National Poetry Series. Moore’s Requeening is featured in Page One in the November/December issue of Poets & Writers Magazine.

“It was sodden daylight. The rain had stopped, but she could hear water dripping off things.” In this Stony Brook University virtual event, Elizabeth McCracken reads from her new story collection, The Souvenir Museum (Ecco, 2021), which is featured in Page One in the May/June issue of Poets & Writers Magazine.

“I just wanted to show you what is to me, home, and always will be,” says Andrew J. Graff in this video offering a view of the Michigan landscape that inspired his debut novel, Raft of Stars (Ecco, 2021), which is featured in Page One in the March/April issue of Poets & Writers Magazine.

Rumaan Alam reads from his third novel, Leave the World Behind (Ecco, 2020), and speaks with Laura Marsh about developing his characters in this virtual event for the New Republic salon book series. A Q&A with Alam by Joshunda Sanders is featured in the November/December issue of Poets & Writers Magazine.

“I think that the body does not let you forget.” In this PBS NewsHour video, Natasha Trethewey reflects on the trauma of her mother’s murder, the subject of her book Memorial Drive: A Daughter’s Memoir (Ecco, 2020), and how the events led her to become a poet and writer. Trethewey is interviewed by Joshunda Sanders in “A Poetics of Resilience” in the July/August 2020 issue of Poets & Writers Magazine.

In this video, Pulitzer Prize–winning poet and translator Robert Hass reads “Okefenokee: A Story,” “Pertinent Divagations Toward an Ode to Inuit Carvers,” and other poems from his book Summer Snow (Ecco, 2020) at the 2019 Sewanee Writers’ Conference in Tennessee. The book, Hass’s seventh poetry collection, is featured in Page One in the January/February issue of Poets & Writers Magazine.

“It wasn’t fair that fish could see color, / and whales could not, but I was okay: I loved my new body. / I don’t know what kind of whale I was. In the ocean / there were no mirrors.” Emily Jungmin Yoon’s poem “The Transformation,” which appears in her debut collection, A Cruelty Special to Our Species (Ecco, 2018), has been adapted into a Motionpoems film directed by Malin Sandberg. 

Josh Malerman talks about writing novels while touring with his band, incorporating performance and radio play elements into his book readings, and the inspiration behind his debut novel, Bird Box (Ecco, 2014), in this video from the 2015 Midwest Literary Walk. The novel has been adapted into a feature film directed by Susanne Bier and starring Sandra Bullock, John Malkovich, Sarah Paulson, and Trevante Rhodes.

Bird Box (Ecco, 2014), the debut novel by Josh Malerman has been adapted into a feature film. Directed by Susanne Bier, the psychological thriller film stars Sandra Bullock, John Malkovich, Sarah Paulson, and Trevante Rhodes and follows a woman and her two children as they traverse a post-apocalyptic landscape while blindfolded to escape an unseen, supernatural adversary.

The Miniaturist (Ecco, 2014), Jessie Burton’s debut novel revolving around a mysterious dollhouse in seventeenth-century Amsterdam, has been adapted into a three-part television miniseries for Masterpiece on PBS. Directed by Guillem Morales, the series stars Emily Berrington, Romola Garai, Alex Hassell, Hayley Squires, and Anya Taylor-Joy.

“I really think these characters were with me twenty years before I wrote the book.” In this video for A Word on Words, Ron Rash speaks about the inspiration for his latest novel, The Risen (Ecco, 2016), which centers around a murder in a small North Carolina town in the 1960s.

The Sisters Brothers (Ecco, 2011), Patrick deWitt’s Booker-nominated picaresque western novel about two assassin brothers during the California Gold Rush, has been adapted into a feature film. Directed by Jacques Audiard, the film stars Riz Ahmed, Jake Gyllenhaal, Rutger Hauer, Carol Kane, Joaquin Phoenix, and John C. Reilly.

Robin MacArthur reads a love letter to her home state of Vermont for an episode of State of the Re:Union with music scored by Red Heart the Ticker, MacArthur’s band with her husband Tyler Gibbons. MacArthur’s debut novel, Heart Spring Mountain (Ecco, 2018), is featured in Page One in the January/February 2018 issue of Poets & Writers Magazine.

“It’s okay to be in flux and figure it out, and take your time to figure it out.” Follow iO Tillett Wright through the streets of New York City to Joshua Tree in California leading up to the launch of his debut memoir, Darling Days (Ecco, 2016).